Clinical
and scientific directors at NIH
have created a new professional
designation, the assistant clinical investigator, to help fill the gap between
clinical fellowship and tenure-track while also better recognizing clinical
investigators.
This new position aims to provide
clinical clinical investigators with advanced mentoring, independent resources,
and more time to enlarge their talents and research accomplishments on the road
, should they aspire to take it, to the tenure track.
It is “not designed to hold them
at NIH forever,” noted Lynnette
Nieman, an NICHD senior investigator and chair of the Careers Working Group of
the Advisory Board for Clinical Research. Rather, it is viewed as the
intramural equivalent of a newly appointed assistant professor in the
extramural program, many of whom have K23 grant support.
This new designation did not
materialize out of nowhere, said Richard Wyatt, executive director of the
Office of Intramural Research. The
idea for such a slot dates back to the 1997 Straus Report (see the Executive Summary),
which stated that clinical research might be “no longer such a desirable career
choice,” due to the slow production of results compared with basic
research. This language, in turn,
influenced the 2004 Benz-Goldstein report, with the more pointed recommendation:
“Staff clinicians whose major focus
is clinical research should be treated like other tenure-track scientists,
recruited through an open search, and provided with independent research
resources. . . . Perhaps a separate
designation, such as clinical investigator, would be appropriate for these
individuals. The non-tenured staff
clinician designation should be reserved for those who truly function primarily
in a service role.”
The use of this designation is at
the discretion of the institutes, and one institute may opt to use it more
heavily than another. Interested clinical researchers—for example,
clinical fellows or staff clinicians—should contact their branch chief to
learn the nuances of the position in their institutes and centers (ICs), Wyatt
said.
A standard competitive recruitment
mechanism may be used to attract both intramural and extramural candidates for
these positions, Nieman said.
Assistant clinical investigators
will have a three-year appointment with the possibility of up to two one-year
extensions. Though the slot can be a valuable steppingstone to the tenure
track, its principal objective is
to stimulate careers in clinical research, according to Nieman, CC Director
John Gallin, Deputy Director for Intramural Research Michael Gottesman, IC
scientific directors, and many others within the Intramural Research
Program.
Staff clinicians serve important
roles in the clinical research process. In some cases, they may be eligible for an Assistant Clinical
Investigator designation, but other options may also be possible, Wyatt said.
As the Straus Report points out,
without clinical researchers, it would be very difficult for the NIH to fulfill
the second part of its mission—the “pursuit of fundamental knowledge
about the nature and behavior of living systems and the application of that
knowledge to extend healthy life and reduce the burdens of illness and disability.
. . .
“[NIH’s] massive intellectual and
capital resources, its singular focus on research rather than on service
obligations, teaching, or profit, and its sustained support by an enlightened
nation should permit the NIH to harbor an atmosphere of dynamic scholarship and
incomparable clinical research productivity even as clinical research continues
to erode elsewhere.”
“The
assistant clinical investigator position is a critical step in mentoring and
enabling clinical research careers at the NIH,” said Gottesman. “I strongly encourage its
widespread use.” 