Advocating for Physician-Scientist Training
NACST represents the leaders who build and run physician-scientist training — from medical school entry through the first independent award. When federal policy touches that pathway, we speak for the program directors and administrators who see its effects firsthand.
A Voice Across the Full Continuum
NACST's membership spans MD-PhD, DO-PhD, and Medical Scientist Training Program directors and administrators, alongside postgraduate physician-scientist training program (PSTP) and R38 program directors. That range lets the Association advocate at every stage where a trainee could be lost from the physician-scientist pipeline — not just one.
Medical School Entry
MD-PhD, DO-PhD, and MSTP programs recruit and fund students committed to research from the start of training.
Residency & Fellowship
R38 and PSTP programs give residents who discover a research interest later a structured on-ramp into it.
Career Development
K08, K23, and K38 awards bridge trainees from mentored research into independent investigation.
Independent Investigator
The first individual research award — the point every earlier stage in the pipeline is built to reach.
How We Advocate
Direct Federal Engagement
Formal correspondence with NIH and other federal offices when policy changes affect training pathways, drawing on our members' direct experience running these programs.
National Partnerships
Ongoing collaboration with AAMC groups overseeing physician-scientist training, so program leaders' experience informs national workforce policy.
Outcomes Data
Our membership includes the program leadership behind R38 and MD-PhD training nationally — putting us in a position to compile the outcomes data federal agencies need to evaluate a pathway's record.
Advocacy Record
A running record of NACST's formal advocacy on behalf of physician-scientist training programs.
NIH's notice NOT-OD-26-098 places the K38 award under a new KC1 activity code alongside the K08 and K23. NACST wrote to explain why that grouping concerns our membership: the K38 serves a different purpose, bridging R38 program graduates toward an individual K08 or K23 rather than replacing them, and is awarded earlier — while a resident or fellow is still deciding on a research career. Folding it into the same code as the K08 and K23 pits R38 graduates against peers with years of additional protected research time, and risks losing the downstream commitment that made the R38/K38 pathway work for institutions that built research on-ramps around it.
NACST offered to help NIH's Division of Biomedical Research Workforce compile national outcomes data on the R38/K38 pathway ahead of the current funding opportunities' expiration in July 2027.