Maximize Your Residency: Essential Research Strategies for MDs in Addiction Medicine

Why Research During Residency Matters in Addiction Medicine

For an MD graduate interested in Addiction Medicine, research during residency is not optional “extra credit”—it is one of the strongest levers you have to shape your career, stand out in the allopathic medical school match for fellowships, and ultimately influence how substance use disorders are treated at scale.

Addiction Medicine is evolving rapidly: new medications, harm-reduction strategies, integrated care models, and public health interventions are constantly being studied. Residents who engage in research early gain:

• A deeper understanding of evidence-based practice
• A competitive edge for an addiction medicine fellowship
• Skills to lead quality improvement (QI) and program development
• Long-term credibility as an educator or academic clinician

Whether you plan to work in a community hospital, academic teaching center, or public health system, building research skills during residency opens doors—especially in a specialty as data-driven and policy-relevant as addiction medicine.

In this article, we’ll walk through how an MD graduate can strategically plan and execute research during residency with an eye toward a future in Addiction Medicine, even if your base specialty is internal medicine, family medicine, psychiatry, emergency medicine, or pediatrics.

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Understanding the Role of Research in an Addiction Medicine Career

How Research Aligns With Addiction Medicine Practice

Addiction Medicine sits at the intersection of clinical care, behavioral health, and public health policy. Effective care relies on evidence in areas such as:

• Medication for opioid use disorder (MOUD) outcomes
• Overdose prevention and harm reduction
• Co-occurring psychiatric and medical conditions
• Health systems interventions (e.g., ED buprenorphine protocols)
• Social determinants of health and equity in addiction care

Clinicians who understand how this evidence is generated are better positioned to:

• Evaluate the quality of new studies and guidelines
• Advocate for specific treatments (e.g., MOUD in hospitalized patients)
• Design and implement QI initiatives in clinics or hospitals
• Contribute to guidelines, consensus statements, and curricula

Research exposure during residency also builds a mindset of curiosity and structured problem-solving: What’s not working? How can we measure it? What can we change?

Research and the Addiction Medicine Fellowship Application

If you’re aiming for an addiction medicine fellowship, your research portfolio can be a major differentiator, especially if you come from an allopathic medical school match pathway with varied clinical strengths but limited addiction exposure.

Admissions committees look for:

• Demonstrated commitment to substance use and addiction topics
• Evidence that you can complete projects (posters, publications, QI results)
• Ability to think critically about data and methodology
• Potential to contribute to the academic mission of their programs

You don’t need a dozen first-author publications, but you do want:

• 1–3 solid resident research projects touching addiction or behavioral health
• Some form of output: abstracts, posters, oral presentations, or manuscripts
• Strong letters from mentors highlighting your research engagement

Even if you later choose a non-academic career, these experiences will shape your clinical practice and leadership.

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Choosing the Right Research Pathway During Residency

Clarify Your Career Vision Early

In your intern year (or even before starting residency), define your goals:

Ask yourself:

• Do I see myself in an academic residency track, eventually teaching or leading programs?
• Am I more interested in clinical innovation and QI within hospitals or clinics?
• Do I want to focus on policy and public health, influencing systems and legislation?

Your answers will shape the type of research you pursue:

• Academic track focus → hypothesis-driven studies, manuscripts, multi-site collaborations
• Clinical/QI focus → pragmatic resident research projects, workflow redesign, outcomes tracking
• Policy/public health focus → population health analyses, implementation science, health services research

You can mix elements from all three, but having a primary direction helps prioritize your limited time.

Common Types of Resident Research in Addiction Medicine

You don’t need a randomized trial to meaningfully contribute. As an MD graduate in residency, the following project types are highly feasible and valued:

1. Quality Improvement (QI) Projects

   • Example topics:
     • Increasing rates of AUD or OUD screening in an internal medicine clinic
     • Implementing a buprenorphine initiation pathway in the emergency department
     • Reducing benzodiazepine co-prescribing in patients on opioids
   • Advantages:
     • Closely tied to patient care
     • Often easier IRB pathways (or QI exemptions)
     • Can be completed on a residency timeline

2. Retrospective Chart Reviews

   • Example topics:
     • Outcomes of hospitalized patients started on MOUD at discharge
     • Characteristics of patients with recurrent ED visits for alcohol intoxication
     • Overdose trends in a specific population (e.g., patients with chronic pain)
   • Advantages:
     • Uses existing data
     • Good entry project for learning study design and basic statistics

3. Implementation Science / Health Services Research

   • Example topics:
     • Evaluating the roll-out of naloxone distribution in a health system
     • Studying barriers to MOUD prescribing among primary care physicians
     • Assessing telehealth addiction services launched during the COVID-19 era
   • Advantages:
     • Direct relevance to health systems and policy
     • Strong fit for addiction medicine fellowship applications

4. Clinical or Educational Research

   • Clinical examples:
     • Comparing outcomes between different models of integrated behavioral health
     • Evaluating brief MI-based interventions in primary care
   • Educational examples:
     • Creating and evaluating a resident curriculum on substance use disorders
     • Assessing stigma reduction interventions among trainees

5. Case Reports and Case Series

   • Example topics:
     • Unusual presentations of substance-related conditions
     • Complex multi-substance withdrawal scenarios
     • Novel applications of existing addiction treatment approaches
   • Advantages:
     • Great entry point
     • Good for building writing skills and publication experience

Aligning Research With Available Resources

Before committing to a project:

• Assess data access: EHR systems, registries, clinic databases
• Identify mentorship: addiction medicine specialists, psychiatrists, internists with SUD focus, or public health faculty
• Determine feasibility: Can this realistically be done with your schedule and program structure?

If you’re in a smaller hospital with fewer research resources, focus on:

• Pragmatic QI
• Case reports/series
• Multi-center resident collaborations through society networks (e.g., ASAM, AAAP)

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Finding Mentors, Teams, and an Academic Home

Identifying Strong Mentors in Addiction Medicine

Effective mentorship is often the single biggest determinant of whether your research during residency is productive and rewarding.

Look for mentors who:

• Have a clear track record of addiction-related work (clinical, research, or education)
• Are realistically available to meet (at least quarterly, preferably monthly)
• Have prior experience supervising residents or fellows
• Are generous with authorship, opportunities, and networking

Possible mentor sources:

• Addiction medicine faculty (board-certified, even if fellowship-trained in another specialty)
• Psychiatry or internal medicine faculty with substance use or integrated care focus
• Public health or epidemiology faculty affiliated with your institution
• Directors of addiction consult services or opioid stewardship programs

How to approach them:

• Send a concise email: 3–5 sentences summarizing your background, interest in addiction medicine, and 1–2 research ideas or themes
• Attach your CV, highlighting any prior research during medical school
• Request a brief introductory meeting (15–20 minutes)

Prepare for the meeting by:

• Clarifying your time availability and rotation schedule
• Bringing 2–3 general topic areas you care about (e.g., ED-initiated buprenorphine, stigma in hospital settings, alcohol withdrawal protocols)
• Being open to joining existing projects rather than inventing something from scratch

Building a Research Team and Collaboration Network

You don’t have to do everything alone. Resident research projects are stronger when supported by a small, complementary team:

Ideally, you assemble:

• Clinical lead – usually your primary mentor, brings content expertise
• Methodologist/biostatistician – assists with study design and analysis
• Resident or fellow co-investigators – share workload, cover for scheduling gaps
• Nursing / pharmacy / social work partners – crucial for QI and implementation studies

To find collaborators:

• Attend resident or department research meetings
• Join addiction-focused committees (e.g., opioid stewardship, pain management, consult services)
• Participate in national organizations: ASAM, AAAP, ACP or AAFP addiction SIGs
• Ask your mentor: “Is there an existing project that needs help?”

For an MD graduate with a strong clinical load, collaborating on an ongoing study can be more realistic than starting a large project alone.

Choosing Between Community and Academic Settings

If you are training in a highly academic residency:

• Explore an academic residency track or “research track” if available
• Ask about protected research time in PGY-2/3
• Meet early with your program’s research director or vice chair of research

If you are in a primarily community-based program:

• Focus on QI and pragmatic studies rooted in practice
• Use regional or state public health data where possible
• Partner with nearby universities or public health schools for statistical support
• Consider remote mentorship with addiction researchers at other institutions

Both environments can support excellent research; your strategy just needs to be tailored.

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Designing and Executing Feasible Resident Research Projects

Step 1: Narrowing Your Question

A common pitfall: overly broad questions.

Instead of:
“Do addiction consults improve outcomes?”

Refine to something like:

• “Among adult inpatients with alcohol withdrawal at Hospital X, does involvement of the addiction consult service reduce 30-day readmissions compared with historical controls?”
• “Does implementing a standardized buprenorphine initiation order set increase the percentage of eligible inpatients started on MOUD?”

Use the PICO framework (Population, Intervention, Comparison, Outcome) to sharpen your question, even for QI.

Example PICO for a QI project:

• Population: Adults with OUD admitted to the internal medicine service
• Intervention: New inpatient MOUD initiation protocol and provider education
• Comparison: Pre-intervention period (3–6 months prior)
• Outcome: Rate of MOUD initiation, linkage to outpatient follow-up within 7 days

Step 2: Selecting Study Design and Measures

Common designs in resident projects:

• Before-and-after QI design
• Retrospective cohort study using EHR data
• Cross-sectional survey of providers or patients
• Mixed-methods study combining quantitative data with interviews/focus groups

Key measures in addiction medicine research might include:

• MOUD initiation and continuation rates
• 30-day readmission or ED revisit rates
• Overdose events or naloxone administrations
• Completion of detox protocols
• Alcohol use biomarkers or screening tool scores (AUDIT-C, CAGE, etc.)
• Process metrics (screening rates, consult orders, follow-up appointment scheduling)

Keep outcomes:

• Clinically meaningful
• Measurable with data you can realistically obtain
• Aligned with institutional priorities (e.g., reducing readmissions)

Step 3: IRB and Institutional Approvals

Even QI projects should be run by your IRB or QI office to determine:

• Does this qualify as QI exempt from full IRB review?
• Does it require expedited or full review?
• Are you collecting identifiable patient information?
• Are you conducting interventions beyond standard of care?

Start IRB discussions early—delays here can derail timelines.

Practical tips:

• Ask your mentor for sample IRB submissions
• Use institutional templates where available
• Clearly articulate in lay language:
  • What you’re doing
  • Who is affected
  • What data you’re collecting
  • How you’ll protect privacy

Step 4: Managing Time and Scope

You have call shifts, wards, clinics, exams, and personal life. Scope your research accordingly.

Project management strategies:

• Break the project into phases:
  1. Question + design
  2. IRB / QI approval
  3. Data collection
  4. Analysis
  5. Abstract/poster/manuscript
• Set 3–4 key deadlines with your mentor synchronized with your rotation schedule
• Use simple tools: shared documents, spreadsheets, and project timelines
• Batch work into elective blocks or lighter rotations where possible

Example realistic timeline over 18–24 months:

• Months 1–3: Identify mentor, define question, outline design
• Months 4–6: Submit IRB/QI proposal and revise
• Months 7–12: Data collection and preliminary analysis
• Months 13–18: Present as poster or abstract at a conference (e.g., ASAM annual meeting)
• Months 16–24: Draft and submit manuscript

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Turning Research Into Career Capital: Presentations, Publications, and Next Steps

Converting Work Into Presentations and Publications

Your goal is not just to do research, but to show what you’ve done.

Common venues for presenting addiction-related resident research:

• National:
  • American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM)
  • American Academy of Addiction Psychiatry (AAAP)
  • Specialty societies (e.g., ACP, AAFP, APA) with addiction-themed sessions
• Regional and institutional:
  • State medical societies
  • Hospital research days
  • Residency program scholarly activity days

For each project, aim to generate at least:

• 1 abstract submission (poster or oral)
• 1 institutional presentation (grand rounds, noon conference)
• 1 manuscript submission (even if it ends up as a brief report)

If your project is QI-focused and data are modest, target:

• QI-focused journals (e.g., BMJ Open Quality, Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety)
• Specialty journals with QI sections
• Educational journals for curriculum-based projects

Highlighting Research During Residency in Your Fellowship Application

When applying for an addiction medicine fellowship as an MD graduate, your application should frame research as part of a coherent narrative:

In your personal statement:

• Describe how research experiences shaped your understanding of substance use care
• Highlight what you learned (not just what you did)
• Connect projects to your future goals: academic clinician, clinical innovator, or policy leader

In your CV:

• Create a "Research and Scholarly Activity" section
• List:
  • Resident research projects (title, role, brief description)
  • Publications (peer-reviewed and non-peer-reviewed)
  • Abstracts, posters, and presentations
• Indicate if work is submitted, accepted, or in progress (clearly labeled)

In interviews:

• Be ready to briefly summarize each project:
  • The question
  • Your role
  • The main finding or learning
  • How you would build on it in fellowship

Integrating Research Skills Into Your Future Practice

Research during residency doesn’t lock you into an academic-only future. Instead, it supplies:

• Critical appraisal skills: reading addiction medicine literature with nuance
• QI literacy: leading practice changes in clinics or hospitals
• Data comfort: using dashboards and registries to monitor outcomes
• Leadership credibility: when advocating for new addiction services

In any setting—community hospital, VA, FQHC, private practice—you can:

• Lead or contribute to substance abuse training programs for staff
• Launch and evaluate new clinical services (e.g., opioid treatment programs, integrated SUD clinics)
• Serve as a bridge between front-line practice and policy-level decision makers

Research during residency is the training ground for this broader influence.

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Practical Examples of Resident Addiction Research Projects

To make this concrete, here are some realistic project ideas tailored to different training environments and interests.

Example 1: QI Project in Internal Medicine Residency

Setting: Urban academic hospital, strong inpatient census of patients with alcohol and opioid use disorders.

Project: “Improving Initiation of MOUD for Hospitalized Patients With Opioid Use Disorder”

• Problem: Low rates of buprenorphine initiation for hospitalized OUD patients; many leave against medical advice (AMA).
• Intervention:
  • Develop an MOUD order set with standardized dosing and monitoring.
  • Deliver two brief educational sessions to hospitalists and residents.
  • Partner with case management to schedule follow-up with addiction clinic prior to discharge.
• Measures:
  • Pre- vs post-implementation MOUD initiation rates.
  • 30-day readmission and AMA discharge rates.
  • Percentage of patients with documented outpatient follow-up arranged.
• Outputs:
  • Hospital QI day poster.
  • Abstract submission to ASAM.
  • Brief report submission to a general internal medicine or quality journal.

Example 2: Retrospective Study in a Community Program

Setting: Community-based family medicine residency with limited research infrastructure.

Project: “Characteristics and Outcomes of Patients With Alcohol Use Disorder Presenting to the ED of a Community Hospital”

• Methods:
  • Retrospective chart review over 12–24 months.
  • Extract data on demographics, comorbidities, prior detox attempts, referrals to treatment, and ED revisits.
• Goals:
  • Identify high-risk groups for recurrent ED presentations.
  • Provide baseline data to justify a new ED-to-outpatient addiction referral pathway.
• Outputs:
  • Institutional presentation to ED and hospital leadership.
  • Poster at a state family medicine conference.
  • Potential short publication in a regional journal.

Example 3: Educational Research in Psychiatry Residency

Setting: Academic psychiatry program with limited formal addiction curriculum.

Project: “Impact of a Structured Substance Abuse Training Module on Resident Stigma and Confidence in Treating OUD”

• Intervention:
  • Develop or adapt an addiction curriculum including:
    • Didactics on neurobiology of addiction, MOUD, harm reduction.
    • Clinical workshops with standardized patients using motivational interviewing.
  • Pre- and post-surveys assessing:
    • Knowledge about OUD treatment.
    • Self-efficacy in prescribing MOUD.
    • Stigmatizing attitudes (using validated scales where possible).
• Outcomes:
  • Changes in knowledge, attitudes, and confidence scores.
• Outputs:
  • Presentation at institutional education day.
  • Submission to an academic psychiatry or medical education journal.

Each of these examples fits within a typical residency timeline, advances your expertise, and reinforces your pathway toward an addiction medicine fellowship.

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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

1. Do I need prior research experience from medical school to do research during residency?

No. Many residents begin their first substantial research project during residency. Prior experience helps, but is not mandatory. What matters most is:

• Finding supportive mentors
• Choosing a feasible, well-scoped project
• Following through to completion and dissemination

If your background is light on research, start with QI, case reports, or retrospective chart reviews to build skills and confidence.

2. How much research do I need to be competitive for an addiction medicine fellowship?

There is no fixed number. Programs value quality and relevance more than volume. For most MD graduates:

• 1–3 meaningful resident research projects (especially substance use-related)
• At least one abstract/poster and, ideally, one publication or in-press manuscript
• Clear demonstration of sustained interest in addiction (clinical rotations, electives, advocacy, teaching, etc.)

This combination is usually sufficient to show strong academic engagement.

3. What if my residency program has limited addiction specialists or research infrastructure?

You still have options:

• Focus on QI projects that improve local addiction care processes.
• Seek virtual or cross-institution mentorship from addiction medicine faculty at nearby academic centers or through professional societies (ASAM, AAAP).
• Use publicly available data (state overdose data, CDC data) for basic analyses.
• Collaborate with your institution’s quality office or a regional medical school for methodological support.

Commitment and creativity can partially compensate for sparse local resources.

4. How do I balance research with the demands of residency?

Balancing is challenging but possible with planning:

• Start small and focused: one primary project at a time.
• Use elective blocks or research rotations intensively.
• Schedule short, regular check-ins with your mentor (e.g., monthly 30-minute meetings).
• Break tasks into manageable steps: IRB, data pull, cleaning, analysis, writing.
• Protect time on your calendar for research, just as you would for clinic.

Honest communication with your mentor and program leadership about your goals is key. Many programs will support a motivated resident, especially when projects improve patient care.

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Research during residency is one of the most powerful ways an MD graduate can build a future in Addiction Medicine. By choosing feasible projects, cultivating strong mentorship, and turning your work into posters and publications, you position yourself not only for a successful addiction medicine fellowship, but for a career shaping how substance use care is delivered at every level of the health system.