Note: Kristine Yaffe, MD, director of CTSI's Strategic Opportunities Support (SOS) program, and its assistant director of Comprehensive Career Mentoring and Career Development program, is the UCSF program director for its award from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation 2015 Fund to Retain Clinical Scientists.
The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation (DDCF) today announced grants totaling $5.4 million to 10 medical schools to establish a Fund to Retain Clinical Scientists within each of their institutions, including UCSF through a program administered by the university's Clinical & Translational Science Institute (CTSI). Each school will receive $540,000 over five years to provide stronger institutional support and supplemental funds for early-career physician scientists to maintain productivity during periods of excessive extraprofessional demands. At UCSF, the program will be lead by Department of Psychiatry faculty members Kristine Yaffe, MD (program director), and Christina Mangurian, MD, MAS (program co-director).
DDCF launched the Fund to Retain Clinical Scientists (the Fund) to build upon a growing momentum in the medical research field toward supporting young physician scientists through phases of intense, extraprofessional career obstacles. Studies have revealed that up to 44 percent of young physicians with full-time faculty appointments at academic medical schools leave their posts within 10 years. Furthermore, while women enter academic medical centers at about the same rate as men, they make up only 19 percent of faculty at the full professor level. The causes of this disparity are varied and complex, but one contributing factor is the load of transitory but significant outside responsibilities such as childcare, elder care or family illness that may arise and preclude the career growth of many young faculty members, particularly women.
“As a foundation committed to fostering the careers of physician scientists in academic medicine, we sought a way to retain promising early-career faculty during times they are most challenged by caregiving demands,” said Betsy Myers, program director for Medical Research. “We look forward to partnering with the 10 awardee institutions on this crucial effort and hope that their work inspires the academic community to adopt similar models for their own faculty.”
Read the official Press Release here "Ten Institutions Receive Grants Totaling $5.4 Million Through Inaugural Fund to Retain Clinical Scientists To Bolster the Long-term Careers of Young Physician Scientists"