Physician-scientist career awards and a dilemma: National institute of child health and human development K awards-individual, institutional, or national?

TY - JOUR

T1 - Physician-scientist career awards and a dilemma

T2 - National institute of child health and human development K awards-individual, institutional, or national?

AU - Schwartz, Alan L.

N1 - Funding Information: In this issue of the JAMA Pediatrics, Twombly et al6 analyzed the NICHD-funded 1999-2001 cohort of 355 K scholars and found that scholars with only an MD degree and who received an individual K-award or both an individual K and an institutional K12 award were more likely to apply for (88.0% vs 82.8% vs 60.1%, P < .001) and receive (60.0% vs 60.9% vs 32.9%, P < .001) subsequent NIH research program grant support (eg, R01) than individuals who received only institutional K12 support. Scholars with MD and PhD degrees have similar outcomes. They concluded that, “based on the data, NICHD intends to provide a greater proportion of its career development fund allocation to individual awards.” Not surprisingly, specific K12 programs have variable over-all success. The NICHD began K12 programs in the late 1980s: Reproductive Scientist Development Program (RSDP) (13 obstetrics-gynecology scholars per year), Pediatric Scientist Development Program (PSDP) (14 pediatrics) and Child Health Research Center (CHRC) (51 pediatrics). In the 1990s, the NICHD added Women’s Health Research Center (WRHR) (41 obstetrics-gynecology), Building Interdisciplinary Research in Women’s Health (BIRCWH) (together with Office of Research in Women’s Health) (8), Rehabilitation Medicine (18), and several smaller programs. BIRCWH, WRHR, and CHRC are local institutional awards, whereas the others are national awards. The 3 oldest awards (PSDP, RSDP, and CHRC) are among the largest NICHD-supported K programs. As of its 2011 renewal, 156 PSDP scholars had graduated. Per NICHD staff in 2010, the person success rate (number of people receiving an award / number of people who apply × 100) for PSDP fellows who apply for R01 funding was 51%.7 As of its 2016 renewal, 192 PSDP scholars had graduated since the PSDP began in 1986 and 95 PSDP graduates were or had been principal investigators on 331 awards (eg, 185 R series). While detailed data on the RSDP are not available, Okeigwe et al8 described the cohort of 388 obstetrics-gynecology physician-scientists (82% MD only, 18% MD-PhD) who were K12 (82%), K08 (10%), or K23 (8%) recipients from 1988 to 2015. Of the 288 who received the first K award between 1988 and 2009, 22% applicants were successful in obtaining an R01 (K08 [32%], K12 [21%], and K23 [17%]). Obstetrics-gynecology BIRCWH K12 recipients had 26% R01 success, WRHR had 23% success, and RSDP had 19% success. Winer et al9 (and K. Winer, MD, written communication, 2015) has described the CHRC outcomes. As of 2011, 784 CHRC K scholars had submitted 3892 grant applications, with 1051 funded. Overall, 69% received at least 1 NIH grant (over-

PY - 2018/3

Y1 - 2018/3

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85042940764&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1001/jamapediatrics.2017.4240

DO - 10.1001/jamapediatrics.2017.4240

M3 - Editorial

C2 - 29340560

AN - SCOPUS:85042940764

SN - 2168-6203

VL - 172

SP - 218

EP - 219

JO - JAMA Pediatrics

JF - JAMA Pediatrics

IS - 3

ER -