Effective mentoring critical to HIV/AIDS resear...(tigators and optimizing their productivi...),Health

"Deciding to reserve mentoring for the top strata of early-career researchers does not broaden the pool of investigators. By making mentoring open to any investigator doing HIV research, we find that we are providing career support to a more diverse group of individuals from a more diverse set of research disciplines," said the article's co-author, Ruth M. Greenblatt, MD, UCSF professor of clinical medicine and co-director of the CFAR mentoring program.

The authors note other goals of the mentoring program, including retaining early-career investigators and optimizing their productivity and assisting them with transitions as their careers progress.

"The National Institutes of Health is limiting grant resubmissions due to funding constraints. Our mentors assist in optimizing grant submissions and ensuring mentees have a strong career strategy with appropriate expectations. Moreover, mentoring can be extremely helpful in assisting early-career investigators with the complicated but essential balancing of personal time with career advancement," said Greenblatt.

Greenblatt observed that the NIH has placed particular emphasis on the challenges faced by clinician scientists and noted that the country risks losing an entire generation of these essential investigators.

"We hear similar concerns from clinician scientists. They mention lack of access to funding, lack of caring for them as individuals and lack of a collegial atmosphere. Our mentoring serves as an intervention to specifically address these problems," said Greenblatt.

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