K12 Career Development Program in Emergency Critical Care Research University of Michigan PD/PIs: Robert Neumar, M.D.-Ph.D.; David J. Pinsky, M.D. The goal of the proposed program is to prepare a diverse group of early career clinician-scientists for leadership roles and independent research careers in emergency critical care research through a multidisciplinary, mentored career development program focused on developing innovative approaches to severe, acute, life-threatening illness and injury in emergency settings. This career development program for advanced learning in emergency critical care research will be led by Robert W. Neumar, M.D.-Ph.D., Chair of Emergency Medicine, and David J. Pinsky, Director of the Samuel Frankel Cardiovascular Center (CVC). Scholars may choose mentoring teams led by experienced and highly published senior clinician-scientists in Emergency Medicine, Pulmonary and Critical Care, Neurology, General and Trauma Surgery, Cardiovascular Disease, Biomedical Engineering, and Biostatistics. Career development will emphasize all phases of emergency critical care research and practice in a collaborative culture emphasizing the close interdependence of excellence in direct patient care and clinical research. Commitment of faculty, across not only the breadth of the University of Michigan Health System (UMHS), but also multiple schools at UM, represents a singular strength of this program. Mentors with active NIH funding will guide Scholars in designing individual development plans and achieving milestones including academic courses, professional development training, expert consultations, and research to produce preliminary data for research project funding. Scholars will be expected to transition to individual K or R01 funding by the end of the third year of K12 support. Immediate/Long-term Objectives: 1. Recruit 4 junior faculty Scholars with diverse backgrounds and demonstrated commitment to emergency critical care clinical research and innovative approaches to screening, diagnosis, and clinical management of patients manifesting cardiovascular/neurovascular/ pulmonary/ disease, sepsis, or trauma. 2. Pair each Scholar with a multidisciplinary mentoring team committed to the Scholar's development and achievement of milestones set forth in a customized individual career development plan for three years. 3. Provide comprehensive on-the-job/on-campus clinical research career development program leading to an M.S. in Clinical Research Design and Statistical Analysis (CRDSA) offered for clinician-scientists. 4. Advance Scholars toward independent research careers through additional didactic training in clinical trial design and oversight, data safety and monitoring, data management and security, scientific writing, grant writing, technology development, scientific presentations, responsible conduct of research, and leadership. 5. Immerse each Scholar in the mentor's research program, a diverse campus network of collaborating critical care researchers, and stimulating scholarly discussion and ideation, and clinical patient care. 6. Monitor and improve program quality and effectiveness through a combination of metrics, active Scholar/mentor feedback, and post-program Scholar career tracking. This innovative program will be housed in the Michigan Center for Integrative Research in Critical Care (MCIRCC), a comprehensive research enterprise devoted to transforming critical care medicine by accelerating science from bench to bedside. MCIRCC, administratively anchored within the Department of Emergency Medicine, is a team science hub for innovative, interdisciplinary, collaborative, translational research on acute illnesses and injuries. Scholars will become affiliates of MCIRCC, the Cardiovascular Center Clinical Research (C3RG) Group, and other relevant multidisciplinary research centers at UM. These centers of excellence emphasize cutting-edge research, collaboration and networking, scholarly and research information exchange, clinical research training, and biomedical technology development that will transform not only emergency critical care research, but also future patient care. The proposed education program will provide: 1) a broad knowledge and training in modern clinical and translational science; 2) coursework to address gaps in scientific training; 3) didactic and experiential training in intellectual/philosophical approaches to modern investigation and technology development; 4) improved scientific and grant writing skills; 5) enhanced research mentoring and leadership skills. In addition to the mentored research and the M.S. in CRDSA, educational programming will leverage the well-established Michigan Center for Clinical Health Research (MICHR), an NIH CTSA offering very successful education, training, and research/academic mentoring programs to enhance and support dozens of training and career development programs for graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and faculty throughout the Medical School.
This career development program will serve the public health by increasing the clinician-scientist workforce with the purpose of enabling transformative research in emergency critical care for life threatening illness and injury. With a $260 billion annual cost to the U.S. economy, critical care represents 40% of total annual U.S. hospital costs. Technological advances are desperately needed to advance care and improve outcomes through development of next-generation diagnostics and therapeutics that can improve patient outcomes under emergency and critical care conditions, and enhance understanding of mechanisms leading to death. To most effectively perform clinical research in emergency critical care research, faculty embarking on research careers require a unique skill set that is most efficiently acquired in a mentored multidisciplinary training environment such as that described in this application.
