Professional societies have played important roles in sponsoring career development across a wide variety of disciplines. Well-established career training awards are available from professional organizations with interest in somnology and sleep disorders, such as the American Heart Association, American Diabetes Association, American College of Chest Physicians, American Lung Association, and the American Thoracic Society, among others. Table 7-1 shows the number of career development awards several organizations made in 2004. Since sleep-related research is relevant to several of these organizations, the number of sleep-related training grants is also provided. It is worth noting that investment in sleep-related research is low for all professional organizations profiled below; for example, despite the significant association of sleep disorders and cardiovascular disease, only 2 of the 845 awards given by the American Heart Association’s career training program portfolio supported sleep-related research. One impediment leading to the limited support from these organizations is that they might not recognize the important role they have in fostering interdisciplinary research, as they are focused on more traditional organ-based research.

There are two primarily sleep-focused organizations that have training awards: the National Sleep Foundation (NSF)’s Pickwick Club Award, and the American Sleep Medicine Foundation (ASMF)’s Faculty Career Advancement Award.

The ASMF, affiliated with the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, annually sponsors between four and six fellowship awards, each as much as 2 years in duration and for a maximum annual funding level of $60,000. From 2003 to 2005 the program received on average 18 applications (personal communication, R. Money, AASM, November 9, 2005). In 2005, the