Personalized Pediatrician-Scientist Training Program Optimizes Institutional Research Investment

Objective

Physician-scientists are a diminishing subset of the pediatrician work force, uniquely trained to advance child health through scientific discovery. The current financial landscape of academic medical centers makes traditional resource-intensive training programs untenable.Continued renewal of this critical pediatric workforce requires new resource-efficient methodologies. Thus, we evaluated the impact of the NICHD supported Vanderbilt K12 program, a personalized, intensive training program. Study Design: We tracked academic outcomes for scholars with K12 appointments between January 2015 and December 2022. Our primary outcome was receipt of a mentored career development award (K08 or K23). Successful transition from mentored to independent NIH funding (K to R transition) was used as a secondary outcome. Academic outcomes for faculty participating in a large, institutional training program, the Vanderbilt Faculty Research Scholars program (VFRS), served as a comparison cohort. A complementary qualitative evaluation of the K12 program was performed.