Internship Sites with Protected Research Time

[Enlightened1]

I think it would be useful to construct a list of pre-doctoral internship sites that guarantee research time....

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[Enlightened1]

Boston VA/Consortium
Brown Consortium
UIllinoisChicago
VA Palo Alto
Medical Univ South Carolina
Minneapolis VA Medical Center
VA Maryland/Univ of Maryland
NY Presbyterian- Cornell MC
University of Washington
Western Psychiatric Institute
University of Wisconsin

 

[AcronymAllergy]

Houston VA, UAB, and I believe both MUSC and Jackson (Mississippi Medical Center) all do. UF supposedly does as well, but at least when I interviewed there, the response from interns was akin to: "yeah, you have protected research time--it's called Saturday."

 

[NeuroTrope]

Really though, you shouldn't be overly concerned about research during internship. One year isn't enough time to start projects and even if you have archival data, I'm sure most sites prefer you focus on their work prior to publishing on your own (and you'll have to be quite productive and efficient to simultaneously write manuscripts with other groups while completing internship). Even if the site provides its own archival data, it takes time to learn the dataset, brainstorm a strong topic, and actually write the thing. Not to say it's impossible, just shouldn't be a priority. Postdoc is another matter though...

 

[irish80122]

The gerontology track of Baylor College of Medicine is a terrific research site that provides a lot of research time. I went through it a few years ago and can't recommend it highly enough.

 

[OneNeuroDoctor]

I believe it is common for many sites to have Friday afternoons off and this is devoted to dissertation time. I had to meet with my chair a number of times Friday afternoon so this worked out well for me. When my dissertation was completed, I then took off on Friday afternoons to return home for the weekend. From my understanding it is one of the requirements of APA accredited internships to have either a research component or allow students to work on their dissertation. It is becoming more common for many to have their dissertation completed before beginning internship.

 

[Therapist4Chnge]

We had 1/2 day of research/dissertation time per week (the day varied by intern/rotation). Then Fridays were 1/2 day of clinical and then DCT supervision and then peer supervision.

 

[deleted343839]

Really though, you shouldn't be overly concerned about research during internship. One year isn't enough time to start projects and even if you have archival data, I'm sure most sites prefer you focus on their work prior to publishing on your own (and you'll have to be quite productive and efficient to simultaneously write manuscripts with other groups while completing internship). Even if the site provides its own archival data, it takes time to learn the dataset, brainstorm a strong topic, and actually write the thing. Not to say it's impossible, just shouldn't be a priority. Postdoc is another matter though...

Some internships explicitly value research productivity. They may not be very common, but those programs can be a good fit for people who are aiming at academic careers. During my internship year I was able to write and submit a first-author manuscript that was based on a data set from my training site. I had to finish writing my dissertation on my own time, though.

 

[Member1928]

Some internships explicitly value research productivity. They may not be very common, but those programs can be a good fit for people who are aiming at academic careers. During my internship year I was able to write and submit a first-author manuscript that was based on a data set from my training site. I had to finish writing my dissertation on my own time, though.

I think if you are on an academic track it is very helpful to land an internship that values and encourages research. My site gave us anywhere from 6-8 hours of protected time for research each week. We were also required to complete a projected based on data from the internship site. I authored a book chapter and had one first author pub from internship. More importantly perhaps are the connections and collaborations you make if you land at a research heavy site. If your program has 15 interns a year and 20-30 faculty who are active researchers then all of the sudden your network of potential collaborators just expanded a great deal. Just my thoughts on the matter.

 

[AcronymAllergy]

Some internships explicitly value research productivity. They may not be very common, but those programs can be a good fit for people who are aiming at academic careers. During my internship year I was able to write and submit a first-author manuscript that was based on a data set from my training site. I had to finish writing my dissertation on my own time, though.

Agree with this. Some sites will allow protected research time to be used for dissertation work while others may not (or may at least discourage it). I've also worked at a couple places that actually required some type of product from interns, even if just a poster.

 

[erg923]

From my understanding it is one of the requirements of APA accredited internships to have either a research component or allow students to work on their dissertation.

Your understanding is not corrrect.

 

[futureapppsy2]

Agree with this. Some sites will allow protected research time to be used for dissertation work while others may not (or may at least discourage it). I've also worked at a couple places that actually required some type of product from interns, even if just a poster.

Adding to this, I know of at least one site that won't allow interns to work on research with site faculty until their dissertation is defended.

 

[Therapist4Chnge]

Adding to this, I know of at least one site that won't allow interns to work on research with site faculty until their dissertation is defended.

This was the policy at the site where I interned. The DCT made a point to tell all of us that in the first intern supervision, as she stressed the importance of everyone (successfully) defending so we didn't fall into "post-internship limbo". From what I've been told, students who get stuck trying to make that final push really struggle.

 

[AcronymAllergy]

Adding to this, I know of at least one site that won't allow interns to work on research with site faculty until their dissertation is defended.

Yep, this is (if I'm remember correctly) how my site was, as well as at least one of the sites at which I trained afterward.

 

[OneNeuroDoctor]

Your understanding is not corrrect.

It may be an area of APA emphasis but not required. When we completed the APA renewal site study in 2012 when I was on internship, one of the domains was research. The site was doing research with each cohort involved and their accreditation was renewed.

 

[weeblewobble]

Boston VA is one of those sites with research time "when possible"- not protected. I was not impressed with them when I interviewed, to be honest, given their rep.

 

[cara susanna]

I think it's helpful to note that a lot of the research-oriented sites have protected research time, but it is slotted for original research and not dissertation. They consider the dissertation to be something that interns should work on outside of internship. This is contrary to the sites discussed above (that require the dissertation to be worked on if it is not completed).

I also want to note that although sites may offer these hours, it may not be protected as well as you'd think. For instance, I know interns who are so busy that they don't use their protected time for research but rather for catching up on notes or reports. I try to maintain good boundaries with my own research time but it is very easy to schedule into it during a busy week.

Honestly, I don't think I had any idea going in how difficult it would be to work on research during internship. People told me but I figured I'd find a way. I didn't. Of course, I couldn't get involved with original research because my dissertation isn't defended yet.

 

[WisNeuro]

It may be an area of APA emphasis but not required. When we completed the APA renewal site study in 2012 when I was on internship, one of the domains was research. The site was doing research with each cohort involved and their accreditation was renewed.

erg is right, this is not one of the domains for internships in accreditation procedures. The document is available on APA's site. I also just went through a recent site visit and have read through the material. If it is a part of a sites stated program philosophy, they need to have a foundation for it in place, but not required or listed as an emphasis area in the G&P guidelines.

 

[OneNeuroDoctor]

Hmm.. We had to go through each of the domains for our site study and interns had to have evaluation procedures in each domain. APA had indicated that ongoing research was needed at the site during the prior site visit in 2008 and they had to specify research options to become fully accredited. May have something to do with Psychologist on the site study team.

It was under the Program Evaluation domain and we needed empirical based research methods for determining program evaluation. Therefore, we developed a system using research based on client ratings of services. We were also provided protected time to work on dissertation.

 

[WisNeuro]

I won't opine on what happened with the site visitors because I wasn't there, but feel free to read through the G&P and self-study application for accurate information.

That being said, a lot of sites will offer some kind of research time, but it is a good thing to ask about, it is not universal. I would say that a majority of VA sites that I am acquainted with offer some time. Although some will require that you are showing progress on some kind of product for that time and are not just using it for other things.

 

[Enlightened1]

Deleted

 

[cara susanna]

I want to match at a top-tier research site. I have roughly 10 publications (4 first-author) in good journals (e.g., JCCP). I have also defended my dissertation, so I don't envision this being an issue when applying/over the course of the internship year. I think the one requirement I have for an internship site is that I have protected research time. Even 1/2 - 1 day would may a huge difference- I'm pretty confident I could tackle a lot with that time.

Even with protected time and your dissertation finished, it's difficult because internship is a clinical year (even at the research-focused sites). Most of my fellow interns, who had finished their dissertations, fully intended on becoming involved with research while they were here and even talked to people/completed IRB training, but it never got off of the ground and they got caught up in other things, like our clinical duties. Only one intern is involved in an independent research project with our faculty and this person had it worked out before they even arrived here. This person has also expressed some chagrin over having to deal with this project on top of clinical obligations as it is a lot to manage in one year.

I also interviewed at some pretty research-y sites and they made it clear that you won't get a lot of research done. It's a clinical year. Most sites also seemed to want their interns to get hooked up into their research so they could really get into it as post-docs.

 

[futureapppsy2]

Even with protected time and your dissertation finished, it's difficult because internship is a clinical year (even at the research-focused sites). Most of my fellow interns, who had finished their dissertations, fully intended on becoming involved with research while they were here and even talked to people/completed IRB training, but it never got off of the ground and they got caught up in other things, like our clinical duties. Only one intern is involved in an independent research project with our faculty and this person had it worked out before they even arrived here. This person has also expressed some chagrin over having to deal with this project on top of clinical obligations as it is a lot to manage in one year.

I also interviewed at some pretty research-y sites and a lot of them made it clear that you won't get a lot of research done. It's a clinical year. Most sites seemed to want their interns to get hooked up into their research so they could really get into it as post-docs.

*nods* Plus, VA and AMC IRBs can be much harder to get a foothold in than university IRBs--much more red tape.

 

[kestrelcry]

Slightly tangential, and obviously this is just my thoughts on the matter: I hope to APPIC that you're not actually starting your application process now. I mean, you know, dabbling in possible application sites sure, if you must, but the process is painful enough without making it a whole six months long. You can start sometime in the summer and still have oodles of time to do the thing and plenty of people don't start until the Fall. APPIC's application portal doesn't even open until July. The fact that you've defended puts you ahead of the game already. Spend the time working on research instead, if you must engage in something lengthy and full of complicated bits and pieces.

 

[AcronymAllergy]

*nods* Plus, VA and AMC IRBs can be much harder to get a foothold in than university IRBs--much more red tape.

Very true, which is why it's typically not feasible to develop your own study from scratch. Rather, most internship year research tends to involve hopping on current staff members' ongoing projects and/or utilizing data they haven't had a chance to get around to yet (you can of course propose a unique project in this context).

If you really do want to get something going that'd involve submitting a new IRB, you're probably going to need to begin that process within the first week or two.

As for the amount of time actually set aside for research, I'd honestly be shocked if anywhere is even able (per APA guidelines, which I don't remember off-hand) to provide more than 1/2 to 1 day.

 

[irish80122]

As for the amount of time actually set aside for research, I'd honestly be shocked if anywhere is even able (per APA guidelines, which I don't remember off-hand) to provide more than 1/2 to 1 day.

I can't say this for sure, as I have never been the training director for an internship, but I think I remember hearing that APA requires at least 50% of your time be spent on clinical work, which technically leaves up to 2.5 days for research. However, you are not likely to get that at many internships.

 

[WisNeuro]

I can't say this for sure, as I have never been the training director for an internship, but I think I remember hearing that APA requires at least 50% of your time be spent on clinical work, which technically leaves up to 2.5 days for research. However, you are not likely to get that at many internships.

I'd need to look up actual numbers here and there. We were told that we were expected to have at least 10 hours of direct contact (face to face) a week on average. Once you add on supervision, paperwork, didactics, etc, more than 1/2-1 day would be rough.

As a point of clarification, this is what we were told, I don't know if that number is codified somewhere.

 

[smalltownpsych]

The site I was at had no protected research time or dissertation time, but they did have some ongoing research that interns could get involved in. Also, since there were postdoc slots available some interns could do a little preliminary work on research proposals that they planned on doing during a post doc. Unfortunately that program has been halved since I left because of state budget cuts so less opportunity there, but I am sure other sites have similar structures.

 

[researchgirl]

I do think what people do with their "protected research time" varies. Sites that I interviewed at that time, AND that interns really seemed to get research done at, included Yale, the Mississippi Consortium, and Mass General/Harvard. Some sites do have requirements of submitting first author pubs with faculty while you are an intern, and it seems like those sites might be more serious about providing you time. I'd say look over brochures and talk to current interns to find out how feasible research is during the year, and look for data to support their claims - are interns publishing? attending conferences? Mississippi Consortium reported that during 2013-2014, their interns published on average 4 articles during internship year.

It is true that APA requires 500 face to face hours over the year (so, 10 per week average) and 4 hours per week of supervision, plus didactic seminars - so that's easily a minimum of 18-20 hours a week you can't be doing research - but still room for wide variation from site to site.

 

[cmuhooligan]

MGH BMED and CBT tracks have significant (1 day+) protected research.

 

[PositivelySkewed]

I'd need to look up actual numbers here and there. We were told that we were expected to have at least 10 hours of direct contact (face to face) a week on average. Once you add on supervision, paperwork, didactics, etc, more than 1/2-1 day would be rough.

As a point of clarification, this is what we were told, I don't know if that number is codified somewhere.

FWIW, I have also heard that site visitors are really pushing programs to have dedicated research time. It seems many sites now allow 4-hours per week of dedicated research time. May not be required yet, but it is certainly being strongly encouraged.

 

[MB8]

Yale also offers protected research time.