The Competitive Small Grant Awards Program (CLIME) supports innovative medical education research and curricular projects, locally and across the WWAMI region. $20,000 is distributed each year to support projects at the University of Washington. This year, Laurel Pellegrino, MD, and Jessica Whitfield, MD, MPH, received CLIME small grants for educational projects.

Pellegrino’s CLIME project aims to create high-quality video examples of supportive psychotherapy techniques that will enhance supportive  psychotherapy education at University of Washington. Video examples paired with active learning techniques are effective in medical education and have been shown to increase learner engagement and retention. All materials will be shared freely online for use by psychiatric training programs nationwide.

Whitfield’s CLIME project, with support from Lydia Chwastiak, MD, MPH, and Debra Morrison as co-investigators, will develop a new longitudinal rotation for fourth-year psychiatry residents focused on real-world implementation projects involving the development and launch of collaborative care programs in rural primary care clinics in Washington state, through which the resident will learn about basic implementation principles and critical factors to developing a sustainable integrated care program in primary care settings.