C.J. Gettel is a postdoctoral fellow, National Clinician Scholars Program, and instructor, Department of Emergency Medicine, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut; ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6249-1023 .
A.K. Venkatesh is associate professor, Department of Emergency Medicine, and scientist, Center for Outcomes Research and Evaluation, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut.
Acad Med. 2021 Jul 1;96(7):974-978. doi: 10.1097/ACM.0000000000004076.
The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted medical research, pushing mentors and mentees to decide if COVID-19 research would be germane to the early career investigator's developing research portfolio. With COVID-19 halting hundreds of federal trials involving non-COVID-19 research, mentors and mentees must also consider the broader moral calling of contributing to COVID-19 research. At the time of writing, the National Institutes of Health had responded to the pandemic with significant funding for COVID-19 research. However, because this pandemic is a new phenomenon, few mentors have expertise in the disease and relevant established resources. As a result, many mentors are unable to provide insight on COVID-19 research to early career investigators considering a pivot toward research related to this disease. The authors suggest 4 ways for mentees and mentors to respond to the changes the pandemic has brought to research funding and opportunities: (1) include COVID-19 research in existing portfolios to diversify intellectual opportunities and reduce funding risks; (2) negotiate the mentor-mentee relationship and roles and expectations early in project discussions-considering, as relevant, the disproportionate burden of home responsibilities often borne by early career faculty members who are women and/or from a minority group; (3) address any mentor limitations in content expertise; and (4) if the decision is to pivot to COVID-19 research, select projects with implications generalizable beyond this pandemic to other infectious outbreaks or to the redesign of health care delivery. Mentors and mentees must weigh the relevance of COVID-19 research projects to the postpandemic world and the amount of available funding against the developing interests of early career investigators. Academic medical centers nationwide must enable seasoned and early career researchers to contribute meaningfully to COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 research.
新型冠状病毒肺炎疫情扰乱了医学研究，迫使导师和学生决定新型冠状病毒肺炎研究是否与早期职业研究人员正在发展的研究组合相关。由于新型冠状病毒肺炎使数百项涉及非新型冠状病毒肺炎研究的联邦试验停止，导师和学生还必须考虑为新型冠状病毒肺炎研究做出贡献的更广泛的道德呼吁。在撰写本文时，美国国立卫生研究院已对新型冠状病毒肺炎研究提供了大量资金。然而，由于这种大流行是一种新现象，很少有导师具有该疾病的专业知识和相关的既定资源。因此，许多导师无法为正在考虑转向与这种疾病相关的研究的早期职业研究人员提供有关新型冠状病毒肺炎研究的见解。作者提出了学生和导师应对研究资金和机会因疫情而发生的变化的 4 种方法：（1）将新型冠状病毒肺炎研究纳入现有组合中，以实现知识机会多样化并降低资金风险；（2）在项目讨论早期协商导师-学生关系和角色以及期望-考虑到女性和/或来自少数群体的早期职业教职员工通常承担的不成比例的家庭责任负担；（3）解决导师在内容专业知识方面的任何限制；（4）如果决定转向新型冠状病毒肺炎研究，则选择具有超越此次大流行的普遍意义的项目，例如针对其他传染病暴发或医疗保健提供方式的重新设计的项目。导师和学生必须权衡新型冠状病毒肺炎研究项目与后疫情时代的相关性以及可用资金量与早期职业研究人员的发展利益。全国的学术医疗中心必须使经验丰富的和早期职业的研究人员能够为新型冠状病毒肺炎和非新型冠状病毒肺炎研究做出有意义的贡献。
