title: Rejuvenating clinician-scientist training.
abstract: Clinician-scientists are becoming increasingly rare in medicine as a whole, but especially in ophthalmology. There is a structural gap between MD-PhD training and K-series awards where interested candidates go through residency and fellowship without any structured research exposure or involvement. Furthermore, the success rate of the MD-PhD and K awards leaves much to be desired. The authors propose a redeployment of training resources to reconfigure residency and fellowship training programs for interested candidates with sufficient additional time for a credible research project, augmented salary, and sound mentoring. Opportunities for research training in nontraditional pathways to diversify skill sets and build interdisciplinary teams also would be a prime objective of this novel "Learn-and-Earn" approach.
authors.affiliation: Department of Ophthalmology, Moran Eye Center, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah.
authors.forename: Balamurali K
authors.initials: BK
authors.lastname: Ambati
authors.forename: Judd
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Cahoon
mesh_terms: D002983:Clinical Competence; D004502:Education, Medical, Continuing / Q000639:trends*; D006801:Humans; D007396:Internship and Residency / Q000379:methods*; D008611:Mentors; D009885:Ophthalmology / Q000193:education*
keywords: clinician-scientist; education; training