From bedside to benchmarks: A physician-scientist workforce dashboard for biomedical research institutions

Abstract

Introduction: There is growing concern about the declining physician-scientist workforce. NIH recently provided a national dashboard describing the biomedical research workforce, but local strategies are needed. Methods: We used curated local and national data to develop a workforce dashboard. Results: Many trends at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) were similar to those nationally, such as the increasing percentage of Research Project Grant (RPG)-holding PhDs and the aging RPG population, but differences were also apparent. At OHSU, nearly (3/4) of physician-scientist RPGs hold MD-only, compared with nationally, where nearly half are MD/PhD. OHSU also lags in the percentage of RPGs held by women physician-scientists. Conclusions: Our analysis also permitted us to gain a more complete picture of research funding that has been done nationally. We used these data to develop a dashboard that allows our institution to develop policies to increase the numbers of physician-scientists. The data generation approaches and dashboard are likely to be useful at other institutions, as well.