title: Research experience in psychiatry residency programs across Canada: current status.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To determine the current status of research experience in psychiatry residency programs across Canada.
  
  
  METHODS
  Coordinators of Psychiatric Education (COPE) resident representatives from all 17 psychiatry residency programs in Canada were asked to complete a survey regarding research training requirements in their programs.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Among the 17 COPE representatives, 15 completed the survey, representing 88% of the Canadian medical schools that have a psychiatry residency program. Among the 15 programs, 11 (73%) require residents to conduct a scholarly activity to complete residency. Some of these programs incorporated such a requirement in the past 5 years. Ten respondents (67%) reported availability of official policy and (or) guidelines on resident research requirements. Among the 11 programs that have a research requirement, 10 (91%) require residents to complete 1 scholarly activity; 1 requires completion of 2 scholarly activities. Eight (53%) residency programs reported having a separate research track. All of the programs have a research coordinator and 14 (93%) programs provide protected time to residents for conducting research. The 3 most common types of scholarly activities that qualify for the mandatory research requirement are a full independent project (10 programs), a quality improvement project (8 programs), and assisting in a faculty project (8 programs). Six programs expect their residents to present their final work in a departmental forum. None of the residency programs require publication of residents' final work.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The current status of the research experience during psychiatry residency in Canada is encouraging but there is heterogeneity across the programs.
authors.affiliation: PGY-5 Psychiatry Resident, The University of Western Ontario, London Ontario.
authors.forename: Arany
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Shanmugalingam
authors.affiliation: PGY-3 Psychiatry Resident, The University of Western Ontario, London Ontario.
authors.forename: Sharon G
authors.initials: SG
authors.lastname: Ferreria
authors.affiliation: Professor, Departments of Psychiatry, Psychology, and Epidemiology and Biostatistics, The University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario.
authors.forename: Ross M G
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Norman
authors.affiliation: Assistant Professor, Departments of Psychiatry and Medicine, Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry, The University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario.
authors.forename: Kamini
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Vasudev
mesh_terms: D035843:Biomedical Research / Q000193:education*; D002170:Canada; D002321:Career Choice; D003479:Curriculum; D003625:Data Collection; D006801:Humans; D007396:Internship and Residency; D011570:Psychiatry / Q000193:education*; D012577:Schools, Medical; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires