Piloting the Clinician Scholars Program: Structured Mentoring, Staff Support, and Dedicated Academic Time to Build Family Medicine Research Capacity.

Abstract

Designed as a scholarship pathway for research-curious faculty clinicians in a combined academic family medicine/public health department, the Clinician Scholars Program is a structured engagement between clinicians and research faculty who collaborate on two research projects over 1 to 2 years with support from master-level research staff. The program covers academic time of both the clinician and the research faculty without reduction of salary level, and it provides teams with research funds and dedicated staff effort. Five clinicians completed the 2-year pilot program; outcomes thus far include five manuscripts, one internal grant, and acceptance of one clinician into an institutional 2-year research mentoring program toward the development of a National Institutes of Health career development (K) proposal. Funded in part by a department-level endowment and independent of other institutional and national research pathways programs, the Clinician Scholars Program shows promise in building family medicine research capacity and fostering collaboration between clinicians and research faculty.