The Missing Link of NIH Funding in Pediatric Research Training Program Restructuring

Perspective

The restructuring of pediatric and other academic programs is intrinsic to academia and has long been a reflection of leadership turnover. In pediatrics, department chairs turn over on average once every 5 years.¹ With such leadership changes comes enthusiasm and introduction of fresh ideas that herald novel departmental directions. Yet, in the era of extremely competitive National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding, the current standards for awarding training program support make new program development challenging.

As a faculty member at Yale University and Associate Chair for Research in Pediatrics, I stewarded a portfolio of departmental T32 and K12 awards that supported biomedical research training of residents, fellows, and junior faculty members in a broad array of pediatric subspecialties. When I drafted the successful Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) K12 Child Health Research Center Program proposal and the T32 proposal to support basic science training, the Yale program had more than 20 years of continuous K12 support. At that time, the Yale Department of Pediatrics existed for more than 100 years and had decades of success in the training of physician-scientists. Each of the T32 and K12 proposals were …