National Academies Press: OpenBook

Bridging the Bed-Bench Gap: Contributions of the Markey Trust (2004)

Chapter: Assessing the Markey General Organizational Grants Program

« Previous: Grant Programs
Suggested Citation:"Assessing the Markey General Organizational Grants Program." National Research Council. 2004. Bridging the Bed-Bench Gap: Contributions of the Markey Trust. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10920.
×
Page 19
Suggested Citation:"Assessing the Markey General Organizational Grants Program." National Research Council. 2004. Bridging the Bed-Bench Gap: Contributions of the Markey Trust. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10920.
×
Page 20
Suggested Citation:"Assessing the Markey General Organizational Grants Program." National Research Council. 2004. Bridging the Bed-Bench Gap: Contributions of the Markey Trust. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10920.
×
Page 21

Below is the uncorrected machine-read text of this chapter, intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text of each book. Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.

Assessing the Markey General Organizational Grants Program To assess the Trust's General Organizational Grants program the Committee examined separately those programs that provided (1) clinical research exposure to Ph.D.s trained in basic biomedical research and (2) training in basic research to medical school students or . . young p. ayslclans. The training of Ph.D.s was the more innovative of the two approaches in terms of translational research; the Committee thus decided to concen- trate on these training models. A workshop of program directors titled "Training Programs in Patient-Oriented Pathobiology for Basic Scientists" was convened to learn more about the successes and problems of these programs. This workshop, conducted in October 1999, brought together program directors from six institutions: Johns Hopkins University; Harvard University; University of California, San Diego; Washington University; University of Virginia; and University of Chicago. Irwin Arias of Tufts University made the keynote presentation (Arias, 2003~. A description of all programs for training Ph.D.s is in a subsequent section of this report. In addition, the Committee conducted a series of site visits to grant recipients who provided training in basic research to young physicians. These sites were selected because they represented a wide range of the types of programs that introduced physicians to basic research. The insti- tutions~ollege of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University, Children's Hospital of Boston/Harvard University, and the University of California San Francisco highlight the rich variation in approaches 19

20 taken by the i: BRIDGING THE BED-BENCH GAP nstitutions funded by Markey. A description of all programs for training physician-scientists is in a subsequent section of this report. This report is based on information that emerged from the workshop and site visits as well as other sources. The Committee obtained detailed information on nine of the General Organizational Grants programs. Ex- tant data were used for the remaining programs. The full range of sources includes · a review of extant data on General Organizational Grants pro- grams provided by the Markey Trust; · a review of the literature (see References); · the Workshop on Training Programs on Patient-Oriented Patho- biology for Basic Scientists; · site visits to programs that provide training in basic research to . . . pnys~c~ans; · oral history interviews of Markey trustees and executive staff; · a commissioned paper, "Bridge Building Between Medicine and Basic Science," by Irwin Arias; and · a commissioned paper, "The Endangered Physician-Scientists: Op- portunities for Revitalization Emerge," by Leon E. Rosenberg and Timo- thy J. Ley. Detailed information on the workshop and site visits, the two com- missioned papers, and the membership of the Markey Committee is pre- sented in the appendixes to this report. LIMITATIONS TO THIS ASSESSMENT This report does not attempt to evaluate the programs of the 22 Gen- eral Organizational Grant recipients. First, the goals of the General Orga- nizational Grants program remained relatively broad; for example, there was no request for application against which program activities could be judged. Second, the Trust allowed considerable latitude for funded insti- tutions to modify program activities. Because many of the grants ended well before the beginning of this assessment and key training personnel had moved to other institutions, it was difficult to track these changes and their implications for expected outcomes. Third, because no explicit re- quirements were systematically imposed by the Trust for evaluation, the outcome data collected by grantees were limited and not systematically collected; in addition, for more recently funded programs an insufficient amount of time had passed for expected outcomes to occur. Fourth, insti- tutions were selected for General Organizational Grants partially because of their track record in biomedical research and training. These institu-

ASSESSING THE MARKEY GENERAL ORGANIZATIONAL GRANTS PROGRAMS 21 lions already had substantial extramural funding in biomedical research at Me time of the Markey award. Therefore, it was difficult if not impos- sible to differentiate the impact of the Markey award from other funding. Not surprisingly these limitations helped to preclude the use of those evaluation designs needed to confidently link outcomes to the General Organizational Grants program (e.g., the appropriate use of comparison groups). The Committee considered the possibility of identifying all students who participated in Markey-funded training programs and contacting them in order to monitor their careers. The Committee ultimately decided against that strategy for a number of reasons. · The student selection criteria varied among the programs as did the goals of each of the programs. Consequently aggregating these data was not appropriate. · Record keeping at host institutions was uneven, in some cases spotty and in other cases almost nonexistent, making it difficult if not impossible to identify and contact a significant number of trainees. · No appropriate comparison group could be identified. Consequently the Committee concluded that trying to identify train- ees would tax resources and would not be productive. It decided that a general programmatic estimation by experts would be the only feasible approach to the assessment of the General Organizational Grants pro- gram. The one program funded by the Markey Trust that lends itself to a data-driven evaluation is the Markey Scholars program. This program had a clear goal that was defined by the Markey Trust in advance, so that a proactive outcome assessment of seven cohorts of Markey scholars with an appropriate comparison group is possible. The scholars were selected through a consistent, transparent system and were all at the same career stage at the time of funding. The Committee believes intensive tracking, monitoring, and data collection and analysis for the Scholars program is both feasible and the best use of the Committee's limited resources. This report does provide an explanation of the Markey Trust's fund- ing mechanism for the General Organizational Grants, a description of some of the best practices of the recipient organizations, and a summary of Committee insights to help guide other philanthropic funders.

Next: The Biomedical Research Environment in the 1980s »
Bridging the Bed-Bench Gap: Contributions of the Markey Trust Get This Book
×
Buy Paperback | $46.00 Buy Ebook | $36.99
MyNAP members save 10% online.
Login or Register to save!
Download Free PDF

Since the 1970s there has been a serious gap between fundamental biological research and its clinical application. In response to this gap the Lucille P. Markey Charitable Trust instituted the General Organizational Grants program, which funded two types of awards to provide training that would bridge the bed-bench gap. These training awards fell into two categories: (1) those that provided significant opportunities for M.D.s to engage in basic research during and immediately following medical school and residency, and (2) those that provided significant clinical exposure for Ph.D.s while they were predoctoral or postdoctoral students. These grants were intended to close the widening gap between rapid advances in our understanding of the biological process and the translation of that knowledge into techniques for preventing diseases. This report examines the General Organizational Grant programs, identifies best practices, and provides observations for future philanthropic funders.

  1. ×

    Welcome to OpenBook!

    You're looking at OpenBook, NAP.edu's online reading room since 1999. Based on feedback from you, our users, we've made some improvements that make it easier than ever to read thousands of publications on our website.

    Do you want to take a quick tour of the OpenBook's features?

    No Thanks Take a Tour »
  2. ×

    Show this book's table of contents, where you can jump to any chapter by name.

    « Back Next »
  3. ×

    ...or use these buttons to go back to the previous chapter or skip to the next one.

    « Back Next »
  4. ×

    Jump up to the previous page or down to the next one. Also, you can type in a page number and press Enter to go directly to that page in the book.

    « Back Next »
  5. ×

    To search the entire text of this book, type in your search term here and press Enter.

    « Back Next »
  6. ×

    Share a link to this book page on your preferred social network or via email.

    « Back Next »
  7. ×

    View our suggested citation for this chapter.

    « Back Next »
  8. ×

    Ready to take your reading offline? Click here to buy this book in print or download it as a free PDF, if available.

    « Back Next »
Stay Connected!