The Journal of infectious diseases
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Perhaps the most dramatic finding in the 2014 National Institutes of Health Physician-Scientist Workforce Working Group Report is the aging of the physician-scientist workforce. There are currently 1.6-fold more physician-scientists over the age of 61 than under the age of 50, indicating that our pipeline of physician-scientists is insufficient to maintain current numbers. Several factors likely contribute to this leaky pipeline, including the long training periods, poor compensation during training, diminished funding odds for young investigators, and lack of role models, particularly for women and underrepresented minorities. This perspective will present several ideas for how training programs can play a role in assuring a robust pipeline of future physician scientists.
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Translational research is often conceptualized with an implicit directionality, taking an idea generated in the laboratory (ie, the "bench") and applying it at the point of care (ie, the "bedside"). This role is often played by physician-scientists who work both in the laboratory and in the clinic. ⋯ The goal of this editorial is to highlight this often overlooked role that clinical-translational physician-scientists can play in translating observations at the bedside to efforts at the bench, highlighting their importance for scientific progress and discussing the type of research training and scientific environments that can help these individuals flourish. The importance of cohort studies and multidisciplinary team science in this context will also be highlighted.
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The Infectious Diseases Society of America, HIV Medicine Association, and Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society are concerned by the continued decline in the number of infectious diseases trainees pursuing careers as physician-scientists and the attrition of junior and midcareer physician-scientists. The inability to replace the aging physician-scientist workforce will have a negative, long-lasting impact our biomedical research enterprise and its ability to drive the discovery of new treatments for important infectious diseases. We discuss policy recommendations for securing and optimizing the infectious diseases physician-scientist workforce in the areas of education, training, compensation, and mentorship, as well as ways to improve federal research funding, cross-sector collaboration, and workforce diversity.