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Issue: February 2005
February 01, 2005
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NIH provides loan repayment program to clinical researchers

Program is meant to encourage physician scientists to pursue academic careers.

Issue: February 2005

The National Institutes of Health offers a loan repayment program to attract health professionals to careers in academic clinical research. “It’s an attempt to retain physician scientists, and the success rate of applicants to the program is more than 50%,” said Joanne Ingwall, PhD, vice chairman of medicine for faculty development at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

Ingwall has been in academic medicine for more than 30 years and was recently a panelist at an “Ask the Experts” symposium on developing an early career in academic cardiology at the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions 2004.

Ingwall said most graduating fellows are unaware of the Clinical Research Loan Repayment Program. In exchange for a two-year commitment to a clinical research career, the National Institutes of Health will pay up to $35,000 a year of qualified educational debt, will pay an additional 39% of that amount to cover federal taxes and will reimburse state taxes that are incurred from these payments.

Clinical research is defined as “patient-oriented clinical research conducted with human subjects or research on the causes and consequences of disease in human populations involving material of human origin (such as tissue specimens and cognitive phenomena) for which an investigator or colleague directly interacts with human subjects in an outpatient or inpatient setting to clarify a problem in human physiology, pathophysiology or disease, or epidemiology or behavioral studies, outcomes research or health services research, or developing new technologies, therapeutic interventions or clinical trials.”

Joanne Ingwall [photo]
Joanne Ingwall

Applicants must be U.S. citizens or permanent residents and have an MD or equivalent from an accredited institution. Clinical research must consume 50% of an applicant’s time, and a domestic nonprofit institution or the U.S. government must support the research.

Ingwall said that because most aspiring faculty are unaware of this program, greater mentoring relationships between senior and new faculty are vital to increase awareness.

“When we talked about mentoring at the panel discussion, this issue of obtaining funding came up frequently,” Ingwall said.

Ingwall encouraged graduating fellows to take a proactive posture in establishing mentoring relationships. “Some institutions like ours have an official mentoring program. I am a little skeptical about that approach because if you get assigned somebody, there’s a good chance that will not be a good match. It’s really better if you just search them out,” Ingwall said.

Most senior level faculty are open to these mentoring relationships, Ingwall said.

“Sometimes new faculty ‘misdiagnose’ a mentoring relationship and forget that a true mentor is often someone other than your boss,” Ingwall said. “Your boss has obligations to you as a teacher to get a job done, but he or she may or may not be interested in nurturing your career. A mentor is half parent and half teacher. You have to take time to find somebody to help you identify your needs and help you achieve them.” – by Jeremy Moore

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