Diabetes-Docs: Physician-Scientist Career Development Program (DiabDocs)

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PROJECT SUMMARY The prime objective of our multi-center National K12 “Diabetes-Docs: Physician-Scientist Career Development Program” (DiabDocs) is to support the research career development of the next generation of physician-scientists in basic and clinical diabetes for academic careers with a specific focus on type 1 diabetes (T1D). Our structured K12 program is designed to provide a mentored research experience together with tailored career development training. Given the historically low rates of persons under-represented in medicine entering diabetes research careers, we propose and prioritize here intentional evidence-based effort toward support and funding for these individuals. We propose these aims to achieve the DiabDocs program goals: 1) Create a national cohort of up-and-coming physician-scientist researchers, developing cohesion through shared programmatic training cohort experiences including an annual retreat; 2) Expand the geographical and pipeline reach of current diabetes K12 programs so that diverse K12 Scholar candidates can be trained locally while maintaining the historic strengths of the past diabetes K12 programs; 3) Develop an outstanding national mentor community to train diabetes physician-scientists and provide a more visible pathway to research careers for medical students/residents/fellows by active recruitment programs and inclusion in the DiabDocs retreat and educational programs; 4) Ensure consistency and effectiveness of mentoring, including directed attention to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) across research centers through shared mentor training and resources. In addition to our MPI structure, one of the distinguishing features of our program is the inclusion of all recently- funded K12 Scholar program PIs and their experience as part of the DiabDocs Executive Leadership Committee (ELC) complemented by addition of two Adult Endocrinology physician-scientists with expertise in basic science, health services research, & DEI programs. In addition to these ELC investigators, we have engaged diverse physician-scientists from 15 additional institutions without K12 programs in diabetes, but with a strong interest in engaging with DiabDocs. These institutions bring a wealth of expertise including T32, K12, P30, and CTSA funding. DiabDocs will leverage these resources as well as their wide curricula of study and research experiences to provide our K12 scholars high quality training from a diverse faculty. We anticipate funding 55 Scholar Years over 5 years with each Scholar spending up to 3 years on the K12, but we budget for 2 year terms on average with 27-28 Scholars funded with the goal to obtain independent career development funding such as a K08/K23. Our K12 scholars will be well-positioned to serve as catalysts for multidisciplinary investigations bridging bench-to-bedside science leading to patient-centered discoveries. We are confident that we will attract the highest caliber of applicants and mentor them toward impactful careers in academic medicine as skilled physician-scientist leaders.