Fixing the leaky physician-scientist pipeline: Integrated–dedicated research period programs in emergency medicine

Abstract

Emergency physicians (EPs) are well positioned to perform medical research. EPs are exposed to a wide range of disease types, medical specialties, and treatment modalities. Furthermore, emergency medicine (EM) serves as the safety net for the U.S. health care system. The diverse exposure provides a vast opportunity for EP to perform many worthwhile research projects. Yet, EM has historically had the lowest amount of funding and a lower number of National Institutes of Health–funded research projects. Many suggest the etiology is a “leaky” educational pipeline with loss of many potential physician-scientists over the training and development course. Current research training options for the EM physician-scientist includes MD-PhD, 4-year EM residency program and postresidency fellowships. While each has its advantages and disadvantages, we describe an additional educational alternative of EM physician-scientists, which we have named the integrated–dedicated research period within an EM residency. We describe the features of these programs and preliminary results from the graduates and current trainees.