March 2001 • Volume 7 • Number 3
Georgetown, AAFP center join forces in research venture
BY JANE STOEVER
In a first for Georgetown University and U.S. academia-at-large, the three primary care departments at GU Medical Center are collaborating with the Robert Graham Center in Washington.
The venture has three components:
- developing a research "home" (staff and projects) in the GU departments for family medicine, general internal medicine and pediatrics;
- educating medical students, residents and fellows about research; and
- creating a practice-based research network, a laboratory for primary care research.
In the third component, a few hundred FPs, general internists and general pediatricians will have the opportunity to incorporate research into their practices. Most of the physicians -- in and around Washington -- have served as preceptors for GU medical students for years.
"Our departments and the Robert Graham Center will complement each other's functions in this project," says Jay Siwek, M.D., professor and chair of Georgetown's family medicine department. "Our departments will benefit from participating in some of the center's research activities, infused with a health policy perspective. The center will gain a tie-in to a local clinical base, a new practice-based network of physician researchers."
Siwek, who also is editor of American Family Physician, was principal investigator for GU's proposal requesting a Primary Care Research Infrastructure Grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration. GU and the Robert Graham Center finalized a contract Jan. 18 for collaboration in the research effort.
As the GU proposal evolved, Robert Phillips, M.D., the center's assistant director, conferred with GU faculty. He will facilitate the center's response to GU's grant-related needs.
"Our center is directly contributing to building the capacity for primary care research at one of the nation's leading universities and to preparing primary care researchers for tomorrow," says Phillips.
Demographics may make the GU network distinct from current ones. "A lot of Georgetown University Medical Center preceptors have many Medicaid patients," says Phillips. "Most U.S. practice-based research networks don't have patients who are predominantly low-income, underserved, on Medicaid. The demographics of this new network may make it attractive for collaborations with other networks, such as those in the Federation of Practice-Based Research Networks." The cross-fertilization may yield results different from those coming from networks with higher-income patients.
So what's new for Georgetown University and the Robert Graham Center will most likely pave the way for more collaborative research in years to come.
FP Report is published by the AAFP News Department.
Copyright © 2001 by American Academy of Family Physicians.
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