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Research

Institutional Review Board

Institutional Review Board is required by Federal regulations to ensure that appropriate procedures are in place to protect the rights and welfare of human subjects participating in research. In order to comply with these regulations, the IRB meets to review research protocols and materials to be used in all research involving human subjects. All individuals interested in conducting research that involves human subjects, either retrospective or prospective in nature, must submit their research proposal and study design to ARMC’s IRB. Under the Department of Health and Human Services, human subjects are defined as a living individual about whom an investigator conducting research obtains data through intervention or interaction with the individual; or identifiable private information.

Institutional Review Board Meeting Schedule
2023
January 19, 2023
March 16, 2023
May 18, 2023
July 20, 2023
September 21, 2023
November 16, 2023

All submissions need to be via ARMC-IRB@armc.sbcounty.gov one month prior to the meeting. Incomplete submissions will not be accepted, this includes missing signatures and NIH certificates. Any late submissions will go onto the following meeting’s agenda.

Protocol Application and Forms

  1. IRB Procedure
    Submit IRB application and supporting documents—including the application with all the proper signatures, protocol summary, consent forms, and proof of CITI certification—to ARMC-IRB@armc.sbcounty.gov.
  2. CITI-Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative
    Each new research application is required to have a certificate of completion from CITI for each investigator and research team member listed on the application. Follow this link to complete training and make sure to print out your certificate.
  3. Application Instructions and Guidelines
  4. New Study Forms

Ongoing Study Forms

HIPAA/Ethics in research

Educational Guides and Helpful Aids

Research Educational Snippets

These are all saved in the media folder on Scorpion (file names at end of URL) so please link however you see best – with these URLs or attaching the actual file from Scorpion.

Getting Started

Here are the essential and initial steps needed in order to participate and conduct research through the department of Graduate Medical Education at Arrowhead Regional Medical Center.

  1. Organizing a Research Paper (http://libguides.usc.edu/writingguide)
  2. Study Designs (http://himmelfarb.gwu.edu/tutorials/studydesign101/)

Evaluating your Sources

These links provide tips on how to determine if a source is reputable.

  1. Purdue OWL Evaluation of Sources
  2. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Citing Sources

When determining which format to use when citing sources, check with your advisor or department to see if there is a preferred method. If your department does not have a preferred format, look at the format used by the journals you are considering to have publish your paper.

  1. AMA Citation
  2. Purdue OWL APA & MLA Citations
  3. Manage articles/literature review with these free applications. These apps automatically save documents in one location and builds your reference page and fills in in-text citations as you complete your paper.
    1. Zotero
    2. Mendeley

Helpful Hints

  1. Research Forum - Forum for tips/hints/a way for students to communicate with each other about their research.
  2. Review your study design and how you will run analysis of your data AS EARLY AS POSSIBLE AND BEFORE you start collecting data.
  3. When submitting application for IRB approval, submit at least one month prior to the committee meeting.
  4. Be aware that it takes several months to obtain IRB approval (approximately 3 months on average). Take this into consideration when planning out your study and determining when to start data collection.

Data Extraction

The Office of Research and Grants provides assistance to researchers in obtaining de-identified medical data necessary for completing research at ARMC. Please complete the following medical record request form if you require assistance obtaining data for your research.

Please send completed requests to Reza Hajjafar at HajjafarR@armc.sbcounty.gov along with a copy of IRB approval for your research.

Publications

The Office of Research and Grants encourages principal investigators to consider publishing their research in journals and other publications.

A full list of publications at Arrowhead Regional Medical Center may be found at the National Library of Medicine through PubMed.gov: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=arrowhead+regional+medical+center&sort=date

Things to Consider When Looking to Publish:

Preparing Your Manuscript For Submission:

Now that you have completed the writing stage of your paper, and you are ready to submit your manuscript for publication in the journal of your choice, it is highly recommended to first EDIT and REVISE your manuscript. This extra step and attention to detail will help you become a successful writer and will give you the extra edge that can get your manuscripts published rather than rejected. You will want to find several people; your mentor, Attending’s, Co-Authors, various colleagues (look for those who are experienced in journal publishing), statisticians, research staff, and ask them to read your manuscript and provide critical reviews. Provide a double-spaced copy of the manuscript for comments and a copy for the peer review form to each person for review.

When you ask colleagues to review the manuscript indicate:

  • Where and when you are planning to submit your article and when you are hoping to get the peer review back (allow at least two-three weeks, they are doing you a favor)
  • Ask them to mark sections they find difficult to understand.
  • Summarize in the margins their reactions to the paper.

Things to remember:

  • Remember that critical feedback is necessary for anyone who wants to be a distinguished writer and do not take it as a personal attack rather as a critique to help you improve your research writing skills. Address your colleagues concerns and edit your paper if necessary.
  • Make sure you are thanking the editors in the acknowledgments. Also it is recommended to give a copy of your acknowledgments to everyone you thank so that you can make sure they are happy with what you put in regards to their job title, degrees and contribution to the paper.

What is Peer Review?

Peer review is a process in which articles are examined by people with credentials in the article’s field of study before it is published. Articles are reviewed by experts who are not part of a journal’s editorial staff.

Helpful Links