Sunday, May 11, 2025
5/11/2025
Training Clinician Scientists as Outstanding Clinicians and Imaging Scientists - PROJECT SUMMARY The growing role of imaging in clinical care and biomedical research has resulted in an acute shortage of well- trained clinician-scientists in Radiology. Only a small fraction of current Radiology residents pursue an academic career and much fewer get funded. Dr. Mattrey has improved upon the successful training model he developed at UC San Diego 20-year ago that he recreated at UT Southwestern (UTSW) in 2016. Applicants are selected only if they added 1+ years of mentored research during medical school while engaged in fundable research rather than rely on recruiting from clinically bound trainees. UTSW is fortunate to receive over 150 T32-qualified such applicants/year to choose from. We interview about 30/year that also performed well in medical school to ensure that they can compete with their highly competitive clinical colleagues. We also improved the UTSW training model since the last cycle by: 1) including the internship year to form a 6- year comprehensive training program, which is now mandatory for recent medical school graduates; 2) Interns will spend the 1st 9 months on clinical rotations and the last 3 months in Radiology to prepare for their research year; 3) trainees will now meet with all program faculty to compare interests rather than a select few and will rotate through a subset of faculty laboratories; 4) we have added and funded the option for trainees to spend up to 7.5 months on research after they pass their comprehensive board examination; 5) we added a mock NIH study section to the workshop run by NIH reviewers of a grant being submitted to give the PI feedback and the trainees a first-hand experience of NIH review; and 6) provided a career path from trainee to faculty for those that excelled in both clinical and research, particularly if they submit a K-award in their last year. The training model immerses trainees in mentored research and clinical training over the entire 6 years guided by both research and career mentors. Trainees are kept engaged with their research team during clinical training by providing them with 6 weeks of dedicated research time per year, and more so in their final year. This provides trainees with 21-28 months of mentored research over the 6 years giving them the opportunity to publish their results and submit grants. Their clinical training is identical and synchronized with their clinical peers making them equally skilled. Using this model our trainees over the past 6 years have published 24 papers with 9 as 1st author, presented 60 oral or poster presentations, received national awards, and were granted 6 RSNA R&E Foundation Resident Research grants 1/year the 1st 2 years and 2/year the last 2 years. UTSW and the UTSW Department of Radiology with their extensive physical and human resources are well suited to train the next generation of imaging scientists. Radiology has outstanding and well-funded mentors 11 of whom are themselves clinician scientists. Our mentors have trained over 280 postdocs in the past 10 years and have 61 current trainees. Each trainee has published on average 5.34 papers. Of the 25 mentors, 18 are currently funded as PIs. Including all 25 mentors, the average support is ~371K/year on 1.8 awards.
HHS’ Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System (TAGGS) website provides access to detailed descriptions of grants, loans, aggregated direct payments and other types of financial assistance awarded by the HHS Operating Divisions (OPDIVs) and the Office of the Secretary Staff Divisions (STAFFDIVs).