Residents’ Journal Shines in the Big Apple

This article was written by Arshya Vahabzadeh M.D., who co-chaired the session. He is a fellow in child and adolescent psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital and an APA Leadership Fellow.

With APA’s annual meeting filled with so many exciting events for psychiatry trainees, we were pleasantly surprised by the outstanding turnout for the American Journal of Psychiatry Residents’ Journal “How to be involved” workshop. The Residents’ Journal, now in its eighth year of publication, is an online, peer-reviewed, and resident-edited journal that features the academic work of psychiatry residents and medical students from across the country. Many of the journal’s contributors, reviewers, and editors have gone on to lead promising academic careers in psychiatry.

The workshop allowed our resident-led editorial team to present the current opportunities available at the journal for residents as authors, peer reviewers, or guest editors. We also announced the creation of a new editorial board, expanding the editorial team from three to five residents, a reflection of the immense growth of the journal over the last year. The journal continues to feature extremely high-quality work from residents hailing from over 40 different psychiatry residencies, in addition to several prominent pieces from medical students and residents from other disciplines. A strength of the journal has remained the myriad manuscript types including case reports, original research, and book reviews.

Part of the journal workshop focused on an interactive discussion, where the floor was opened up for comments and questions regarding the journal. In attendance was Robert Freedman, M.D., the editor in chief of the American Journal of Psychiatry, who helped facilitate the discussion surrounding how the journal can continue to be relevant and interesting to residents, in addition to highlighting areas where the journal would benefit from further development and growth.

The American Journal of Psychiatry Residents’ Journal is published monthly and can be found here. For more information, contact Michael Roy at mroy@psych.org.