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Supreme Court Reaffirms Affirmative Action Policies Institutions Grapple with New HIAA Regulations "Operation Tipoff 2" Bioterrorism Exercise Offers Educational Lessons Family Medicine: Trying to Fill the Ranks Current & Choice: 'Prime Time Innovations in Medical Education: The Arts as a Teacher A Word from the President: Educational Diversity is a Compelling Interest Viewpoint: Loan Help for Researchers
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Viewpoint: Loan Help for Researchers
In his keynote address to the AAMC's annual meeting last November, National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Elias Zerhouni, M.D., cited accelerating discoveries in the life sciences, and translating those discoveries to patient care, as national priorities. Accomplishing this goal will require the efforts of everyone involved in the national clinical research enterprise, but it is especially crucial that the NIH, medical schools, and educational associations such as the AAMC work together to reinvigorate the backbone of the research effort, physician-scientists, by removing barriers that prevent their pursuit of research careers. One deep-rooted and far-reaching barrier to research careers is the heavy educational debt of medical school graduates, which has led many promising physician-scientists to compromise their dreams and abandon biomedical research and academic medicine careers for private practice and the attendant financial rewards that allow them to repay their educational debt. Today, thanks to AAMC's support of the NIH mission and budget growth, the NIH Loan Repayment Programs (LRPs) are helping make the pursuit of careers in research and academic medicine a financially viable alternative. The LRPs can provide up to $35,000 per year in loan repayment benefits to promising clinical, pediatric, health disparities, and contraception and infertility researchers. Last year, NIH committed $26 million to fund 85 percent of the eligible LRP applications. This year, the NIH has committed to double the funding level to $52 million and anticipates funding approximately 1,200 LRP applications.
One recent awardee, Esteban Burchard, M.D., an assistant professor of medicine in the Pulmonary and Critical Care Division at the University of California San Francisco, attests that the program enabled him to pursue his passion for research and to apply his "clinical and scientific skills to ensure that all segments of our society benefit from recent advances in genomics." Using a family-based approach to identify genetic variants among asthma candidate genes, Dr. Burchard conducts research to identify genetic risk factors for asthma and asthma severity among Mexican and Puerto Rican Americans. He says there are tremendous financial deterrents for specialists to pursue research, since they can earn 30 to 50 percent more in private practice. "Participation in the NIH's loan repayment program has, by removing the burden of loan debt, made it possible for me to pursue research and make meaningful scientific contributions, while still being able to raise a family in the San Francisco area," one of the nation's most expensive, Dr. Burchard says. Five different programsThe NIH offers five different LRPs, each with an emphasis on specific fields of research or populations: Clinical Research; Pediatric Research; Contraception and Infertility Research; Health Disparities Research; and Clinical Research for Individuals from Disadvantaged Backgrounds. Applicants must have a doctoral degree, devote at least 50 percent of their time (a minimum of 20 hours per week) to research funded by either a nonprofit or domestic government entity (federal, state, or local), and have educational loan debt equal to or exceeding 20 percent of their salary when they enter the program. In the July 2002 edition of the Reporter, AAMC President Jordan J. Cohen, M.D., addressed the enormous educational debt burden borne by medical students and its limiting influence on career choices. He noted that 80 percent of medical students graduate with an average debt of approximately $100,000. Compounding these debts is the interest that must also be paid, as well as the overwhelming sense of helplessness faced by many graduates and trainees who must begin repaying multiple loans shortly after exhausting all available deferral options. In recognition of this problem, the LRPs are open to physicians as early as fellowship training and investigators who are considered mid-career also are encouraged to apply. In 2002, 80 percent of our awardees were trainees or physicians early in their careers. The LRPs are open to applicants with any nonprofit source of research support. As Dr. Zerhouni has stated, there are many opportunities for important research available - research in a variety of different fields that can help virtually everyone. This takes money, of course, and helping this to happen by setting researchers up to succeed is what these loan repayment programs are all about. Editor's note: The NIH Office of Loan Repayment's online application, at www.lrp.nih.gov, opens on Sept. 1, 2003, and closes Dec. 31, 2003. For information, e-mail LRP@nih.gov or call, toll-free, (866) 849-4047. |
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