What Accelerates Clinician-Scientist Productivity During the Period of a Career Development Award? A Qualitative Exploration

Context: Career development awards (CDAs) can support clinician-scientists through research funding, protected time from clinical duties for research, and focused career development activities. CDAs come from a variety of sources including government grants, foundations, or institutional support. Mayo Clinic has multiple CDA programs, one of which is the Kern Scholars program, an institutional CDA focused on training healthcare delivery researchers. We previously showed that the Kern Scholar program accelerated scholarly productivity more rapidly than other CDA programs. Evaluation data to date have not revealed program components that have influenced this acceleration

Objective: To explore the core components of the Kern Scholars program which most impacted the experience.

Study Design & Analysis: Qualitative interviews analyzed using inductive content analysis

Setting: Academic medical center

Population: Past and present Kern Scholars

Intervention/Instrument: N/A

Outcome Measures: N/A

Results: Kern scholars were from a wide variety of specialties and varied research training. Some were pursuing K-award funding (75% non-clinical time commitment), but not all, in part due to clinical responsibilities. Scholars not able to or interested in pursuing K-awards found the 20-40% protected time for research a compromise that could foster growth while maintaining adequate clinical care presence. Entering the program, all participants had an interest in healthcare delivery research but were at various stages of research project formulation. There were 6 key components of the program discussed by participants: formal mentorship, peer support and mentorship, course work, weekly meetings, retreats, and shared physical space. Of these, scholars highlighted the strong influence of formal and peer mentorship and the weekly meetings attended as a cohort. Scholars valued learning together through discussion and shared writing, particularly on grants and publications. These factors helped overcome challenges including feeling unprepared coming into the program and balancing limited time between research, clinical, and family needs.

Conclusions: The cohesive cohort, emphasis on learning and writing together, and strong mentorship appear to be key ingredients of the success of the Kern Scholar program. These findings can be transferred to the development of other CDA programs and curricula.