Mastodon Research and Mentorship in Palliative Care ~ Pallimed

Tuesday, May 19, 2015

Research and Mentorship in Palliative Care

by Tom Leblanc

Each time I attend an AAHPM Annual Assembly, I’m amazed at the growing number of attendees. Amid those thousands of people, it’s easy to forget that we have a pretty serious workforce problem on our hands. But then I attend the Research Special Interest Group (or “SIG”) meeting, and I’m quickly brought down from my blissfully ignorant orbit to face another striking reality: clinical workforce issues also signal challenges for research and mentorship in our field.

We don’t often talk about this, but shortages in the workforce limit our ability to do high-impact, innovative, important research. Even the largest, most research-oriented centers may have just one senior researcher on faculty, and some prominent institutions have none. In this restrictive environment, how can a student, or trainee, or junior faculty member even get started doing palliative care research? How can we meet the mentorship and “start-up” needs of developing researchers in our field?

In our Research SIG discussions, much of our time is spent talking about how to find mentors or how to get involved in palliative care research. This is clearly an area of need in our field. So as this year’s Research SIG Chair, and as someone who spends much of my time thinking about (and trying to do!) research in palliative care, I thought it might be helpful to host this TweetChat on research-related issues in palliative care. Let’s talk about challenges, opportunities, how to get started, how to find a mentor, and even discuss ideas about important research priorities for the field.

Join me @tomleblancMD this Wednesday night at 6pm PST to explore and discuss issues in #hpm research!

Topics for the chat

T1 – What advice would you give to someone who wants to get started in #hpm research?

T2 – What are the most important priorities for research in #hpm?

T3 – In what clinical scenarios do you find yourself wishing you had good data? #hpm

Some useful resources:
AAHPM Research page
AAHPM Research Scholars program
AAHPM year-long mentoring program
AAHPM Research SIG page

A few interesting papers about mentorship:
Having the right chemistry: a qualitative study of mentoring in academic medicine.”
Making the most of mentors: a guide for mentees

Some resources on research priorities in our field:
NINR’s “Innovative Questions” Project
NINR’s “Innovative Questions in End-of-Life and Palliative Care”
“Palliative care research—priorities and the way forward”
“Research priorities in pediatric palliative care: a Delphi study”
“A national agenda for social work research in palliative and end-of-life care”
“Research priorities for palliative and end-of-life care in the emergency setting”
“Research priorities in geriatric palliative care: an introduction to a new series”  (note that there are several articles in this series)

What: #hpm chat on Twitter
When: Wed 5/20/2015 - 9p ET/ 6p PT
Host: Tom LeBlanc 
Facebook Event Listing: https://www.facebook.com/events/584716504995684

If you are new to Tweetchats, you do not need a Twitter account to follow along. Try using the search function on Twitter. If you do have a Twitter account, we recommend using tchat.io for ease of following.

You can find Chat Transcript and Chat Analytics courtesy of @Symplur


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