ACCEL Junior Investigator Network

Julia Barthold, MDProfessor of Urology and Pediatrics

Nemours Biomedical Research and Sidney Kimmel College of Thomas Jefferson University

Considerations for a successful physician scientist career path

• Decide a priori that doing research is an important part of your career

• It is much harder (although theoretically possible) to establish yourself as a successful physician scientist after focusing almost solely on patient care

• Background and training– Research experience in residency or fellowship– Other workshop opportunities• Molecular Biology workshop at Smith College• Many other workshops sponsored by NIH, Cold Spring

Harbor, etc • Grant writing workshops• Activities supported by institution or by specialty

societies

Considerations for a successful physician scientist career path

Considerations for a successful physician scientist career path

• Choose an area to focus on– Clinical or translational• Lab required?• MPH useful?

– Understudied areas in your field, or a novel approach to existing controversial areas

– Limit initial studies to robustly explore a testable hypothesis

– If possible develop a niche of expertise

Considerations for a successful physician scientist career path

• Work with collaborators– Basic scientists if feasible/helpful– People with complementary expertise– Well-funded individuals will to also serve as

content mentors is ideal– People from well-funded institutions– Work hard to establish and maintain positive

relationships with collaborators, don’t pursue those who are not responsive

Considerations for a successful physician scientist career path

• Get institutional support, if possible prior to taking a new job– Request protected time – at least 20% and

preferably at least 50% effort, depending on how well established you are – when negotiating job opportunities

– Request startup funds, equipment, technical help, personnel to help with patient recruitment and/or EMR data analysis

Considerations for a successful physician scientist career path

• Maintain institutional support– Find people to work with you who are reliable and

independent, and can keep the work going when you are seeing patients

– Support (at least) and engagement (if possible) of your clinical colleagues is key

– Protected time needs to be completely protected– Be prepared to work nights and weekends and

drop everything when writing a grant

Considerations for a successful physician scientist career path

• Leverage your achievements– Don’t be afraid to ask for what you need• Additional clinical research or laboratory help• Additional time to write a grant• Fair offset in the compensation plan• Bridge funding between grants, if you are showing

continued efforts at abstract, paper and grant writing

– Your skills may provide your department/division and the institution with unique and valuable skills and expertise

Considerations for a successful physician scientist career path

• Grant submission– Be simple and straightforward– Don’t ask for too much money– Use successful application(s) as template– Write with the review criteria always in mind– Finish draft early and circulate to as many people

as you can find to review it– Put the most effort into the Specific Aims page

Things that helped me

• Summer research with Michael Lesch in med school (Lesch-Nyhan syndrome)

• Research year in residency – cemented interest in embryology

• Presented data at national meeting – approached by Cornell with idea to apply for sponsored fellowship program with Julianne Imperato-McGinley (5-alpha reductase deficiency)

Things that helped me

• Secured protected time at every position following fellowship (Cornell, ACH, CHM)

• Support from ACH for training workshop at Smith College

• NO protected time initially at Nemours, but support for my rat colony + internal funding -> COBRE -> R01 -> CTR with progressively more protected time

• Visibility on national committees (NOT time consuming)

Things that helped me

• Continuing strong and positive relationships with basic scientists both in (Rob Akins) and outside (Marcella Devoto) Nemours

• Strong divisional support (Sonny Figueroa and my other colleagues)

• Department support (Steve Dunn)• Research Department support (Vicky Funanage,

Denise Axsmith and Greg Stets)• Institutional support (Roy Proujansky, Brent King)

Things that helped me

• New collaborations on R21 and R01 renewal– UD Engineering

• Kristi Kiick• Thomas Buchanan (via CTR)• John Slater (via Nemours Clinical Immersion Program)

– Kate Nathanson – genetics of TGCT, Penn– Jorgen Thorup – pediatric surgeon, Copenhagen– Agneta Nordenskjöld – pediatric surgeon, Karolinska– Catherine Shanahan – basic scientist, UK

Questions?