Rescuing the physician-scientist workforce: the time for action is now.

ABSTRACT: The 2014 NIH Physician-Scientist Workforce (PSW) Working Group report identified distressing trends among the small proportion of physicians who consider research to be their primary occupation. If unchecked, these trends will lead to a steep decline in the size of the workforce. They include high rates of attrition among young investigators, failure to maintain a robust and diverse pipeline, and a marked increase in the average age of physician-scientists, as older investigators have chosen to continue working and too few younger investigators have entered the workforce to replace them when they eventually retire. While the policy debates continue, here we propose four actions that can be implemented now. These include applying lessons from the MD-PhD training experience to postgraduate t

SUBMITTER: Milewicz DM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4607120 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature