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Suggested Citation:"Continued Support for Clinical Research Training." National Research Council. 1994. Meeting the Nation's Needs for Biomedical and Behavioral Scientists: Summary of the 1993 Public Hearings. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/4958.
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Page 48

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APPENDIX D 48 among accepted graduate students are 25-35 percent. Although I’d love to think that our 75 percent matriculation rate in our NSF-REU is due to the excellence of our program, realistically one must infer that there are too few programs and places for the number of students who are interested. The conclusions I hope you will draw from the information I have presented are: first, that undergraduate research programs are successful in stimulating interest in and commitment to biomedical research careers; second, that funded summer programs provide the opportunity for minority students and students from liberal arts colleges to gain access to research opportunities; third, that funded undergraduate research programs are cost effective in allowing informed choice; and fourth, that funds to support these activities are inadequate. STATEMENT BY JAMES M. JONES, Ph.D. Thank you for the opportunity to present some oral comments regarding ways to strengthen the National Research Service Award program. I am Dr. James M. Jones, Director of the American Psychological Association (APA) Minority Fellowship Program, and Professor of Psychology at the University of Delaware. I am here on behalf of Dr. Wayne Camara, Associate Executive Director for Science at APA, who had to be in California today. I have directed the APA Program since 1977. We have three training grants, two of which fall under the NRSA aegis. The first is for predoctoral research in non-clinical fields of psychology; the second is for pre and postdoctoral research in neuroscience. The third grant is for training in clinical, counseling and school psychology. While most of the recipients of this grant have aspirations for health service careers, many do pursue academic research careers. You have copies of the written comments submitted by Dr. Camara, and I would be happy to respond to any specific questions raised by that correspondence. For my comments today, I wish to focus on four main points: 1) The recommendation of the Committee to remove NRSA support for clinical training in psychology 2) The desirability of increased support for ethnic minority researchers 3) Importance of Behavioral Research in Solving Human Problems 4) The need to consider the programmatic nature of support across the levels of training, and the need for flexibility in consideration of different training areas Continued Support for Clinical Research Training The recommendation to reduce support for clinical training fails to consider the nature of the field, and the important role of clinical research in other areas for which the Committee has made recommendations to increase support. The recommendation, stemming it seems from concern about the growing number of Ph.D. and PSY.D. degrees among psychologists with a non-research career objective of health service fields, obscures the fact that there continues to be a substantial community of clinical research training programs in psychology and students with academic/research career aspirations. There are over 80,000 Doctoral members of the American Psychological Association, of whom about 45,000 are classified as service providers. Of this number, it is a good estimate that about 25-30 percent (10,000-15,000) are in primarily academic/research careers. To make a blanket claim that clinical psychology trainees do not do research is unwarranted. Furthermore, the fact is that the Committee’s recommendations for increases in support for clinical sciences and health services research, indeed biomedical research begs the question of clinical research training support. Clinical researchers contribute heavily to psychophysiological research, health psychology and behavioral medicine, behavioral aspects of mental health and the like. Many of these researchers work in not only academic psychology settings, but in departments of psychiatry, hospitals, and private health service organizations. It is important to recognize the institutions, research orientations and contributions of clinical research to the overall mission of biomedical and behavioral science research. Funding approaches would do better to refine the identification and support of such researchers, rather than, simply reach the blanket conclusion that “clinical psychology” is primarily service oriented and therefore beyond the purview of NRSA support.

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