What to learn and how to teach it: five years of pre-meetings for training directors in psychiatry.

OBJECTIVE A multi-year conference grant (R13) supported an annual pre-meeting that served as a forum for psychiatry residency training directors to learn about and develop educational programs in their residencies in the area of scholarly activity. METHODS The authors sought to measure the success of these programs through both a between-pre-meeting online survey and a hardcopy evaluation form collected at the close of each annual pre-meeting. All data collection methods were careful to preserve the anonymity of respondents. RESULTS Reaction to the conference was overwhelmingly positive, with the majority of participants finding the instruction highly useful and beneficial, as well as having great confidence in their retention of the material and ability to integrate it into their own curricula. CONCLUSION Attendees at the annual pre-meeting series dedicated to evidence-based medicine and research literacy techniques received well-regarded and highly useful knowledge, training, and educational tools. Incorporation of this knowledge and material into their curricula will likely have a lasting positive impact on their residents and home institutions.