Research and Scholarship

Guided by an individual faculty mentor, you will be exposed to a rich variety of patients and medical technologies that lend themselves to the asking and answering of essential questions in the field of pediatric critical care medicine.

You will have access to the Clinical and Translational Research Center, located on the same Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus as Oishei Children’s Hospital.

This exposure, as well as the ongoing participation of the critical care division in multicenter pediatric trials and research networks, puts you in the position to not only publish, but to excel.

Utilizing the infrastructure within the division, department and university, all research options (basic bench research, translational research, epidemiologic and clinical studies and clinical trials) are available to you.

The goal is to provide you with experience in the investigation of a focused question relevant to critical care medicine and in the preparation of a work product based on these efforts.

Central to this process is a hypothesis-driven proposal with clear aims and methodology. 

You will be mentored by a pediatric critical care medicine faculty member, with the option of expanding this mentorship to include other academic pediatricians as needed.

You will have protected time for research during all three years of your training. The goal of the first year is to choose a track (clinical, physiology, basic science), identify a mentor and members of their Scholarly Overnight Committee (SOC), develop a research plan and submit an Institutional Review Board proposal.

The final two years are devoted to data acquisition and analysis, incorporating SOC feedback, and preparing an academic work product.

During this time, you will complete at least one Quality Improvement project utilizing a similar mentor-guided approach grounded in research methodology.

You will have the opportunity to present your work at some of the most prestigious forums in our field.

These include the:

• annual Society of Critical Care Medicine congress
• annual Pediatric Academic Societies meeting

The program has discretionary funding available to support or reimburse expenses so you can attend conferences to stay current on the latest scholarship and developments in our field.

Click here to learn more about funding opportunities at UB.

Following American Academy of Pediatrics guidelines, our fellowship research activities will teach you to:

• acquire new skills in the analysis of the works of others
• assimilate new knowledge, concepts in the field of one’s practice
• formulate clear, testable hypotheses utilizing a body of information/data to advance research in pediatric critical care medicine
• translate ideas to written, oral forms

PGY-4

• Choose track (clinical, physiology, basic science)
• Attend lab meetings, discuss ongoing projects, observe ongoing experiments, meet collaborators (as needed)
• Choose mentor
• Identify project, work with mentor to identify potential Scholarship Oversight Committee members
• Develop research plan
• Background reading
• Write IRB proposal, 1-page project proposal for program director
• Meet with SOC
• Begin project

PGY-5 and PGY-6

• Establish cohesive plan for all scholarly activity
• Taught to develop testable hypothesis, implement proper design/methodology, apply basic statistical analysis, organize and present results for peer review
• Further research training for those interested in pursuing academic career
• Writing and submitting external grant applications
• Devote off-service time (with exception of electives) to project
• Progressively define, understand the following:
  • Design
  • Rationale, hypothesis
  • Modeling, methodology
  • Based on previously described approaches
  • Statistical concepts
  • Data acquisition
  • Collection
  • Analysis
  • How does this contribute to and advance the field
  • Future directions
• First author, hypothesis-driven research manuscript
• Manuscript submission prior to approval to sit for pediatric critical care medicine certification exam

You will participate in at least one Quality Improvement initiative. This participation should take the form of a project based on a PDSA (Plan-Do-Study-Act) model, with faculty oversight/mentorship.