The Rehabilitation Medicine Scientist Training Program: impact and lessons learned.

Physician scientists are seen as important in healthcare research. However, the number of physician scientists and their success in obtaining National Institutes of Health funding have been declining for many years. The shortage of physician scientists in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation is particularly severe and can be attributed to many of the same factors that affect physician scientists in general, as well as to the lack of well-developed models for research training. In 1995, the Rehabilitation Medicine Scientist Training Program was funded by a K12 grant from the National Center for Medical Rehabilitation Research, as one strategy for increasing the number of research-productive physiatrists. The Rehabilitation Medicine Scientist Training Program's structure was revised in 2001 to improve the level of preparation of incoming trainees and to provide a stronger central mentorship support network. We describe the original and revised structure of the Rehabilitation Medicine Scientist Training Program and review subjective and objective data on the productivity of the trainees who have completed the program. These data suggest that Rehabilitation Medicine Scientist Training Program trainees are, in general, successful in obtaining and maintaining academic faculty positions and that the productivity of the cohort trained after the revision, in particular, shows impressive growth after about 3 yrs of training.