


The reason behind this attrition is complex and multi-dimensional, but one factor is that early faculty members, particularly women, face substantial family caregiving responsibilities such as childcare and eldercare.Ī cohort of U.S. Over 40% of young physicians with fulltime faculty appointments at academic medical schools leave academics within 10 years. The Fund to Retain Clinical Scientists was first launched in 2015 to 1) scale institutional-level “extra hands” programs designed to help researchers maintain productivity in the face of significant transitory time commitments related to family caregiving, and 2) conduct a national-level prospective experiment to assess the impact of these programs on faculty retention and institutional culture. The COVID-19 Fund to Retain Clinical Scientists is a one-time, collaborative funding opportunity that builds on the promising outcomes of the original Fund to Retain Clinical Scientists program to accelerate transformative action toward sustainable institutional solutions. The Fund to Retain Clinical Scientists aims to help sustain research productivity of physician scientists when faced with periods of family caregiving responsibilities and to raise awareness about the importance of added research assistance for caregivers as a retention mechanism.
