The Growth and Development of a Research Division in the Plastic Surgery Department of a Large Urban Academic Medical Center.

INTRODUCTION: Research is a critical component of academic medicine that may or may not be prioritized in centers with high clinical volumes. The benefits of research expansion go beyond notoriety and industry partnerships, expanding into resident training and preparation of the next generation of physician-scientists. Improving a division or department's research portfolio requires a commitment to reorganizing structure, personnel, resources, and a dedication to innovative funding models. To improve research productivity and quality, our group placed several initiatives into motion beginning in August 2017 that we have outlined and evaluated in the present study. Some of these initiatives included restructuring leadership, resourcing both bench and clinical outcomes research, providing initial funding directly from clinical profits and rewarding research fiscally. METHODS: Reviews of hiring records, publications, grant allocations, and interviews with key personnel were used to generate a road map of initiatives. Average impact factor was calculated by averaging journal impact factors for all publications from the department each year, excluding any publications with greater than 5 times the raw average, and creating a corrected average that more accurately represented the work. Student t tests were used to compare mean number of publications and impact factors from 2010 to 2017 to those from 2018 to 2022. RESULTS: Prior to restructuring (2010-2017), the department published an average of 9 articles annually, which increased to an average of 42 articles since that time (P < 0.01). Average impact increased from 0 in 2010 to 4.02 in 2022, with the number of publications in top 10 plastic surgery journals following a similar trajectory with 1 publication in 2010 and 31 in 2023. Following an initial $1 million investment to create an institutionally directed fund in 2018, the department leveraged its research to earn $3 million in endowments, $1.25 million in industry partnerships, $3.23 million in Department of Defense funding, and $1.65 million from a multi-institutional National Institutes of Health grant. CONCLUSION: Deliberate prioritization of research initiatives as noted above has led to remarkable growth in academic output.

Articulating the ultimate objectives of research capacity strengthening programmes: Why this is important and how we might achieve it.

'Research capacity strengthening' (RCS) is an umbrella term that can be used to describe a wide variety of activities conducted in support of diverse objectives premised upon distinct, potentially opposing, views. Despite this, the ultimate objective of RCS activities is rarely made explicit which can be problematic when diverse objectives are possible. By 'ultimate' objective we are referring to the overarching (often long-term) goal an RCS initiative is intended to contribute towards (e.g. better population health) as opposed to the more immediate 'proximate' (often short-term) objectives of any such activity (e.g. improved capacity to undertake infectious disease research). We argue a need for those funding, designing and implementing RCS initiatives to make clear statements as to the ultimate objective that they foresee their respective initiative contributing towards as well as the proposed pathway and associated assumptions that underlie their approach. Examples of distinct ultimate objectives for RCS initiatives are presented alongside fictitious examples of how they may be transparently reported from both a funder and implementor perspective. Such transparency should be routine within the scope of funding calls for RCS activities (even when such activities are only a minor component of the call), subsequent applications to those calls and any description of an applied RCS activity/ies and/or the associated outcomes thereof. The process of determining one's ultimate objective will further cause funders and actors to think through their respective initiatives more thoroughly and make informed choices and better designed RCS projects. Doing so would reduce any ambiguity associated with the use of the term 'research capacity strengthening' and would provide a stronger foundation for robust programme evaluation.

Research networking and the role of the medical librarian.

Medical librarians work collaboratively across all units and missions of academic medical centers. One area where librarians can provide key expertise is in the building and maintenance of Research Information Management Systems (RIMS). At Penn State, the RIMS implementation team has included a medical librarian, research administrators and marketing staff from the College of Medicine (CoM) since its inception in 2016. As our peer institutions implemented or expanded their own RIMS systems, the CoM team has responded to their questions regarding details about the Penn State RIMS instance. The goal of this commentary is to describe how the CoM team has worked collaboratively within Penn State to address questions related to research output, with special emphasis on details pertaining to questions from other institutions.

Patient engagement in a Canadian health research funding institute: implementation and impact.

BACKGROUND: Patient engagement (PE) or involvement in research is when patient partners are integrated onto teams and initiatives (not participants in research). A number of health research funding organisations have PE frameworks or rubrics but we are unaware of them applying and reporting on their own internal PE efforts. We describe our work at the Canadian Institutes of Health Research's Institute of Musculoskeletal Health and Arthritis (CIHR IMHA) to implement, evaluate and understand the impact of its internal PE strategy. METHODS: A co-production model was used involving patient partners, a PE specialist and staff from IMHA. A logic model was co-developed to guide implementing and evaluating IMHA's PE strategy. Some of evaluating the PE strategy and understanding its impact was a collaboration between the Public and Patient Engagement Collaborative (McMaster University) and IMHA. RESULTS: IMHA convened a PE Research Ambassador (PERA) group which co-led this work with the support of a PE specialist. In doing so, PERA had a number of meetings since 2020, set its own priorities and co-produced a number of outputs (video, publications, webinars, blog and modules called the How-to Guide for PE in Research). This work to evaluate and measure impacts of IMHA's PE strategy revealed positive results, for example, on PERA members, Institute Advisory Board members and staff, as well as beyond the institute based on uptake and use of the modules. Areas for improvement are mainly related to increasing the diversity of PERA and to improving accessibility of the PE outputs (more languages and formats). CONCLUSIONS: Implementing a PE strategy within CIHR IMHA resulted in several PE activities and outputs with impacts within and beyond the institute. We provide templates and outputs related to this work that may inform the efforts of other health research funding organisations. We encourage health research funders to move beyond encouraging or requiring PE in funded projects to fully 'walk the talk' of PE by implementing and evaluating their own PE strategies.

Prevalence of faculty mentoring programs in anesthesiology and medical schools in the US and their association with federal research funding.

BACKGROUND: While mentoring programs have demonstrated success for faculty development, reported rates of formal mentoring programs vary for specific programs as well as academic medical institutions overall. The aim of this paper was to evaluate the overall prevalence of faculty mentoring programs and faculty development offices in anesthesiology departments and at academic medical schools and assess the association between those with mentoring programs and faculty development support and NIH funding. METHODS: This study used publicly available data from program and institutional websites to record the presence of faculty mentoring programs and faculty development offices in anesthesiology departments as well as both formal and informal mentoring activities and whether there were offices and deans specifically related to faculty development at the institutional level. Data on NIH funding of anesthesiology departments were recorded from the Blue Ridge Institute for Medical Research rankings of medical schools and their departments. Cramer's V was used to evaluate the association between NIH funding and the presence of mentoring programs offered by the department and/or institution. Logistic regression was used to evaluate the association between total NIH funding of ranked programs (categorized as above or below median of funding) and presence of mentoring programs. RESULTS: The study included 164 US anesthesiology programs, of which 33% had NIH funding. Only 10% of anesthesiology programs had faculty mentoring programs and 29% had offices or leadership positions related to faculty development. At the institutional level, 59% had formal mentoring programs, 73% offered informal mentoring activities, and 77% had offices or deans related to faculty development. Seventy-four percent (74%) of anesthesiology departments offering mentoring resources had NIH funding, compared to only 26% of departments without such resources. For anesthesiology departments with NIH funding, departments in the upper median of funded programs were much more likely to have departmental mentoring resources (OR = 1.429.08; 95% CI: 1.721.03-1.9748.99). Departmental NIH funding was not significantly associated with institutional level presence of formal mentoring programs (OR = 0.91; 95% CI: 0.0.23-3.65). CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest an association between the presence of faculty mentoring programs and faculty development support with departmental NIH funding, with the amount of funding associated primarily with department-specific mentoring and faculty development initiatives. Our findings support efforts to create formal mentoring programs and establish offices and other support systems for faculty development and suggest, at least in terms of academic productivity, that efforts should be more focused on department-specific initiatives.

Strategies to promote scholarship among academic hospitalists.

Academic hospitalists play an integral role in the day-to-day care of hospitalized patients, education and research. They are well-positioned to engage in scholarly and research activities and inform clinical practice. Hospital medicine also offers a compelling career path for those seeking to maintain a broad clinical focus while also pursuing opportunities in quality improvement (QI), clinical research, and medical education (MedEd) projects. Participation in these endeavors not only foster scholarly growth but also enhances career satisfaction for hospitalists. Therefore, there is a need to explore and implement feasible strategies to equip hospitalists with the knowledge and resources necessary to generate scholarship and promote academic growth within the field.

Achieving research impact in medical research through collaboration across organizational boundaries: Insights from a mixed methods study in the Netherlands.

BACKGROUND: In the Netherlands, university medical centres (UMCs) bear primary responsibility for conducting medical research and delivering highly specialized care. The TopCare program was a policy experiment lasting 4 years in which three non-academic hospitals received funding from the Dutch Ministry of Health to also conduct medical research and deliver highly specialized care in specific domains. This study investigates research collaboration outcomes for all Dutch UMCs and non-academic hospitals in general and, more specifically, for the domains in the non-academic hospitals participating in the TopCare program. Additionally, it explores the organizational boundary work employed by these hospitals to foster productive research collaborations. METHODS: A mixed method research design was employed combining quantitative bibliometric analysis of publications and citations across all Dutch UMCs and non-academic hospitals and the TopCare domains with geographical distances, document analysis and ethnographic interviews with actors in the TopCare program. RESULTS: Quantitative analysis shows that, over the period of study, international collaboration increased among all hospitals while national collaboration and single institution research declined slightly. Collaborative efforts correlated with higher impact scores, and international collaboration scored higher than national collaboration. A total of 60% of all non-academic hospitals' publications were produced in collaboration with UMCs, whereas almost 30% of the UMCs' publications were the result of such collaboration. Non-academic hospitals showed a higher rate of collaboration with the UMC that was nearest geographically, whereas TopCare hospitals prioritized expertise over geographical proximity within their specialized domains. Boundary work mechanisms adopted by TopCare hospitals included aligning research activities with organizational mindset (identity), bolstering research infrastructure (competence) and finding and mobilizing strategic partnerships with academic partners (power). These efforts aimed to establish credibility and attractiveness as collaboration partners. CONCLUSIONS: Research collaboration between non-academic hospitals and UMCs, particularly where this also involves international collaboration, pays off in terms of publications and impact. The TopCare hospitals used the program's resources to perform boundary work aimed at becoming an attractive and credible collaboration partner for academia. Local factors such as research history, strategic domain focus, in-house expertise, patient flows, infrastructure and network relationships influenced collaboration dynamics within TopCare hospitals and between them and UMCs.

Cancer Core Europe: Leveraging Institutional Synergies to Advance Oncology Research and Care Globally.

Cancer Core Europe brings together the expertise, resources, and interests of seven leading cancer institutes committed to leveraging collective innovation and collaboration in precision oncology. Through targeted efforts addressing key medical challenges in cancer and partnerships with multiple stakeholders, the consortium seeks to advance cancer research and enhance equitable patient care.

[The Medical Informatics Initiative at a glance-establishing a health research data infrastructure in Germany]. / Die Medizininformatik-Initiative im Überblick ­ Aufbau einer Gesundheitsforschungsdateninfrastruktur in Deutschland.

The Medical Informatics Initiative (MII) funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) 2016-2027 is successfully laying the foundations for data-based medicine in Germany. As part of this funding, 51 new professorships, 21 junior research groups, and various new degree programs have been established to strengthen teaching, training, and continuing education in the field of medical informatics and to improve expertise in medical data sciences. A joint decentralized federated research data infrastructure encompassing the entire university medical center and its partners was created in the form of data integration centers (DIC) at all locations and the German Portal for Medical Research Data (FDPG) as a central access point. A modular core dataset (KDS) was defined and implemented for the secondary use of patient treatment data with consistent use of international standards (e.g., FHIR, SNOMED CT, and LOINC). An officially approved nationwide broad consent was introduced as the legal basis. The first data exports and data use projects have been carried out, embedded in an overarching usage policy and standardized contractual regulations. The further development of the MII health research data infrastructures within the cooperative framework of the Network of University Medicine (NUM) offers an excellent starting point for a German contribution to the upcoming European Health Data Space (EHDS), which opens opportunities for Germany as a medical research location.

Role of the "High Institute of Public Health" during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Case from Egypt.

Background: The High Institute of Public Health (HIPH), as a post-graduate academic institute, was affected by the COVID-19 pandemic in several aspects. This paper describes the effect of COVID-19 on the three main domains of HIPH: research, education, and community services. Documenting the activities and practices of the HIPH during the pandemic reflects the degree of resilience and preparedness against possible future global emergencies. Despite its importance for policymakers, such data is lacking from similar institutes in the Middle East, including Egypt. Methods: An extensive search in four popular scientific databases (Google Scholar, PubMed, Scopus, and Scival) was conducted to extract publications by authors affiliated with the HIPH using relevant keywords. Records were reviewed to collect data on the educational process as well as data on community services (convoys, campaigns, seminars, and workshops held by HIPH staff). All the mentioned activities were described, analyzed and compared before and during the pandemic to study the impact of the pandemic on the HIPH, as an example of a postgraduate institute. Results: The total numbers of COVID-19-related publications in Scopus by authors affiliated with the HIPH were 115 publications, the majority of which were research articles in the 'Medicine' and 'Immunology and Microbiology' domains. Most of them focused on assessing the relationship between the pandemic and quality of life, and prevention and treatment of COVID-19 (22.2% each). Publications on COVID-19 by HIPH researchers during the pandemic constituted 33.1% (115 publications) of the total publications by Alexandria University. Among the top ten authors on COVID-19 at Alexandria University, four were HIPH affiliated. The year 2022 witnessed the most frequent publications on COVID-19 by HIPH (51/115 publications, 44.3% of all COVID-19 publications by the HIPH on Scopus). All program courses were taught online during the year 2019-2020 (343 courses). HIPH provided several community services during the pandemic, which included 16 convoys in the poorer areas of Alexandria that served more than 1250 beneficiaries. Their goals were raising health awareness on COVID-19 vaccination, health education, and environmental assessment. Implications for Policy & Practice: This paper is the first of its kind by members of the High Institute of Public Health, Alexandria University. It provides baseline data for future similar work and is a documentation of the compilation of efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic that gives baseline data for public health assessment and planning by policy makers.

[Medical philanthropy in the United States]. / La philanthropie médicale aux États-Unis.

Philanthropic foundations played a crucial role in rationalizating and organizing American society in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The promotion of science was applied to medical reform, leading to the advent of genuine medical research within the framework of brand-new university hospital faculties. With the two world wars, the state became heavily involved in the field of healthcare. After 1945, it became the main source of funding for biomedical research. Philanthropy did not disappear from the institutional landscape; it continued to work in tandem with public authorities. Its role in medical research is now minor in terms of funding volume, but a strategic one in the development of projects aimed at advancing basic science and knowledge of various diseases.

Title: La philanthropie médicale aux États-Unis. Abstract: Les fondations philanthropiques ont pris une part décisive dans la rationalisation et l'organisation de la médecine dans la société américaine des débuts du xxe siècle, période pendant laquelle la promotion de la science a donné lieu à l'avènement d'une véritable recherche médicale spécialisée dans le cadre des nouvelles facultés hospitalo-universitaires. Avec les deux guerres mondiales, l'État fédéral s'est fortement engagé dans le champ de la santé. Au point qu'après 1945, il est devenu la principale source de financement de l'innovation biomédicale. La philanthropie ne disparaît pas pour autant du paysage institutionnel. Elle continue de fonctionner en tandem avec les pouvoirs publics. Son rôle est aujourd'hui minoritaire en termes de volume de financement, mais stratégique dans l'avènement de projets visant à faire avancer les connaissances sur des processus fondamentaux ainsi que sur de nombreuses maladies.

Executing plans to enhance diversity across cancer centers in the United States: opportunities and challenges.

BACKGROUND: Lack of diversity in the cancer research workforce persists, which the new requirement for all National Cancer Institute (NCI)-designated cancer centers to have a Plan to Enhance Diversity (PED) seeks to address. However, it is not well understood how different cancer centers are approaching the development and execution of these plans. Our objective was to assess how cancer centers are establishing and pursuing their PED. METHODS: We conducted a cross-sectional survey of members of the Cancer Center Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Network, which includes all NCI-designated cancer centers and several emerging centers. A total of 62 cancer centers (75% of those invited), including 58 NCI-designated cancer centers (81% of those with this designation), participated and completed a questionnaire that assessed PED leadership, major challenges, implementation strategies, and approach to evaluate PED progress. RESULTS: The most common PED challenge identified is recruiting diverse faculty (68% of centers), and the most common strategy currently used to address this is reviewing and revising faculty recruitment practices (67%). The most common approach centers are using to measure PED progress is shifts in demographics (68%), and data on the demographics of faculty, leadership, and trainees are available at 79%, 81%, and 75% of centers, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: Almost all centers have established a PED leadership structure, however, there is considerable variation in the approaches used to realize PED goals and in the resources provided to support PED work. Realizing opportunities to share and implement common best practices and exemplar programs has the potential to elevate the impact of PED efforts nationally.

Fidelity in Academic Global Surgery and Research: Incorporating Trustworthiness in the Development of Research Partnerships, Infrastructure, and Policy.

Academic global surgery consists of collaborative partnerships that address surgical inequities through research, training, education, advocacy, and diplomacy. It has been characterized by increased scholastic production through global surgery publications, dedicated global surgery sessions within scientific conferences, global surgery-specific research grants, database development to support global surgery research, global surgery research fellowships, and global surgery-based academic promotion paradigms. The increased emphasis on global surgery research has been accompanied by multiple ethical challenges. This article reviews critical ethical dilemmas presented by global surgery research efforts and proposes interventions on the partnership, infrastructural, and policy levels to enhance fidelity within research partnerships.