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An Innovative Residency Training Program to Promote the Development of Physician-Scientists :

August 5, 2019

The number of pediatricians opting to become physician-scientists seems to be decreasing when one looks at fellowship match data and American Board of Pediatrics workforce data.

The number of pediatricians opting to become physician-scientists seems to be decreasing when one looks at fellowship match data and American Board of Pediatrics workforce data. How can we address serious problem when trainees see diminishing extramural funding for research at a national level combined with ever increasing loan amounts for their medical education?  Factors like these can make them leery about being able to thrive, let alone survive, as physician scientists.  Fortunately, this week Hurst et al. (10.1542/peds.2019-0745), in a special article in our journal, introduce us to the Duke Pediatric Research Scholars Program for Physician-Scientist Development (DPRS) that enables trainees to begin their research training during residency and continue it into fellowship training, with strong research exposure and support throughout, so that they have what it takes to move forward on the road to becoming independent investigators by the time they complete their training. What makes this article so worthwhile is that the authors do not just focus on their own success, but share with readers how their program can serve as a model of what it takes to develop an integrative research program like this in other institutions, including small- to medium-sized residency programs, and not just the largest and most well-resourced programs.

To further emphasize the take-aways from this important special article, we asked Dr. F. Bruder Stapleton, former chair at Seattle Children’s and member of the Seattle Children’s Research Institute to weigh in with an accompanying commentary (10.1542/peds.2019-1586).  Dr. Stapleton reminds us of the many factors that present barriers to a resident considering a career as a physician scientist and gives us other examples of successful initiatives that are cultivating the growth and development of physician-scientists (e.g. the American Board of Pediatrics Integrated and the Accelerated Research Pathways and the NIH’s Pediatric Scientist Development Program).  Yet as he points out, the numbers that benefit from these programs are small and more initiatives are needed.  Perhaps after reading this special article and commentary, you can be better equipped to speak with the powers that be at your local residency training program about the feasibility of creating a similar track as the DRSP at Duke.

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