It all started when…

the Physician-Scientist Workforce Working Group (PSW-WG) was convened by Francis Collins, MD, PhD, NIH Director, to analyze and make recommendations for strengthening the physician-scientist workforce. The PSW-WG emerged from earlier reports highlighting the unique challenges faced by physician-scientists and the need for further study in this area. Through quantitative analyses and qualitative research, the PSW-WG defined physician-scientists as professionals with clinical training who engage in independent biomedical research. They aim to support and sustain a diverse and robust physician-scientist workforce to drive advances in biomedical research and healthcare practice. The nine recommendations from the Physician-Scientist Workforce Working Group (PSW-WG) are as follows:

1. Sustain strong support for MD/PhD training programs, including the Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP) funded by NIH.

2. Shift the balance in postdoctoral training for physicians towards individual fellowships rather than institutional training grants, and increase the number of individual fellowship awards for MD-PhD students.

3. Address the gap in research project grant (RPG) award rates between new and established investigators, exploring pilot approaches and rigorously assessing their effectiveness.

4. Adopt rigorous tools for assessing the strength of the biomedical workforce, including physician-scientists, and establish a Biomedical Workforce Dashboard for real-time tracking of career development and progression.

5. Establish a physician-scientist-specific grant mechanism to facilitate the transition from training to independence, similar to the K99/R00 program.

6. Expand Loan Repayment Programs and increase the amount of loans forgiven to better reflect the debt burden of current trainees.

7. Support pilot grant programs to test approaches for improving and shortening research training for physician-scientists, exploring alternative training methods and addressing emerging needs in informatics and social science research.

8. Intensify efforts to increase diversity in the physician-scientist workforce, building upon previous recommendations from other workforce working groups.

9. Leverage the resources of the Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) program to enhance training and career development for early-career physician-scientists, utilizing rigorous outcome data analysis