Child Abuse Pediatrics Fellowship Scholarship

Council on Child Abuse & Neglect
Sponsored by the American Academy of Pediatrics

The CAP fellow will obtain meaningful research experience through a structured research curriculum. This curriculum provides broad models for training, requiring translation of that knowledge into practice with the guidance of research mentors, and providing a research infrastructure robust enough to enable the completion of required research projects.

A one-hour workshop or lecture is held once a month and lead by the PEM research faculty. These topics are taught in two tracks, one designed for first or second-year fellows and another designed for second or third-year fellows. Second-year fellows may choose between tracks based on which topic best suits their educational needs at the time.

The Topics in Research series is dedicated to structured didactic sessions discussing principles of research design, data collection, data analysis, and presentation of findings. The didactic lectures and/or interactive workshops include, but are not limited to, the following topics:

• Choosing a Research Question
• Performing a Literature Search
• Choosing a Study Design
• Abstract Writing
• Sample Size and Power Calculation
• Presentation Skills
• IRB Navigation
• Data Collection
• Poster Preparation
• Manuscript Writing
• Ensuring Data Quality
• Statistics
• Literature Appraisal

This is a conference that occurs quarterly. It is an interactive workshop style session for second and third-year fellows to assess their progress in completing their research project.

Each session consists of small group sessions moderated by research faculty members in child abuse pediatrics, pediatric emergency medicine and pediatric hospitalist medicine, in which fellows provide individual status updates on their research projects and identify areas in which they require further assistance to complete their projects.

One-hour sessions are held biweekly for Division of Public Health Pediatrics members by ACER. First-year fellows are required to attend three ACER sessions between September and March of their first year. These sessions are open to both faculty and fellows.

For first year fellows, the sessions are designed to assist them in developing a research project.

• The first meeting focuses on choosing a well-defined research question and population to study.
• The second session focuses on determining the intervention or observation of interest.
• The third session focuses on refining the methods.
• The last session focuses on developing a data analysis plan.

Fellows are required to attend the ACER meetings with their research mentor. A study implementation timeline is negotiated with the research mentor for each subspecialty fellow for each project being implemented, and the said timeline is reviewed by the research director to assure research infrastructure resources are available to support the project as designed.

Fellows are responsible for selecting a journal club topic and one to two articles are discussed in depth with a critical review of study design and data analysis.

Journal club occurs in odd months, and responsibility rotates amongst fellows throughout the year.

Selecting an Interest and Mentor

During orientation and for the first few months, fellows identify areas that interest them and explore opportunities for their research activities. In consultation with the program director, fellows are encouraged to meet investigators working in their field of interest.

Mentors can be selected from within the Division of Public Health Pediatrics faculty, the Department of Pediatrics, or throughout Baylor College of Medicine, including the basic science departments.

Guidance for selecting mentors is provided by the fellowship directors. The inclusion of an outside mentor is encouraged when the fellow:

• Has defined a niche for which breadth outside of the subspecialty is required
• Has selected a research project for which research expertise requires a specialized skill set and expertise lies outside of the division
• Has elected an advanced degree pathway with a focus of interest for which an outlying institution may provide optimal mentorship in partnership with Baylor College of Medicine faculty
• Or, has determined an administrative focus for which an outside mentor would more easily facilitate skills development in a setting not available within the academic institution (ex. community health care administration)

Once a mentor is selected, the fellow and mentor identify a specific research project and a training curriculum.

By the end of their second year, fellows are well established in their own research projects. During the third year, fellows present their data at national meetings and prepare a manuscript for publication.

Research goals are delineated as follows in the first year:

• Be introduced to the field of research applicable to child abuse pediatrics through literature reviews, electronic data searches, and journal clubs
• Select an area of activity for a scholarly project and identify a faculty mentor for the project
• Begin a hypothesis driven project and complete a timeline for the project
• Submit IRB proposal for a research project

• By the end of year two submit a case report to a national journal or nationally recognized fellowship case review competition
• Participate in active enrollment for the fellow’s research study
• Gain knowledge regarding grant application processes by participating in workshops and/or didactic teaching of such processes

• By the end of year two submit a case report to a national journal or nationally recognized fellowship case review competition
• Participate in active enrollment for the fellow’s research study
• Gain knowledge regarding grant application processes by participating in workshops and/or didactic teaching of such processes

• Participate regularly in the shared Baylor Pediatric Emergency Medicine Research Didactic Lecture Series (over the course of the three years of training)
• Participate in the data analysis of their project
• Submit a second case report to a national journal or nationally recognized fellowship case review competition (if the first attempt was not selected for publication or presentation)
• Submit a written manuscript of their completed scholarly project

• Write and submit a grant application for funding of a research project
• Present in poster or podium format, an abstract of the fellow’s own scientific work at a regional or national forum