Abstract
Research conducted by investigators in the field of benign hematology has been and continues to be impactful, as basic hematologic scientific discovery has been readily translated to health research. Physician-scientists are critical to the advancement of health sciences, but the size and demographic composition of the physician-scientist workforce are stagnant and at risk for decline. Attracting the next generation of physicians to careers in blood science is essential to the field’s survival, but there are many barriers to successful recruitment and retention of trainees. A recently convened working group identified many key points for intervention, including early, meaningful exposure to blood sciences in medical school; developing partnerships with physicians and scientists trained in other fields; improving diversity; offering protected research time during residency; and enhancing the Loan Repayment Program. By addressing challenges facing hematology and evaluating program success, the Division of Blood Diseases and Resources of the National Institutes of Health, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and the blood sciences community look forward to creating a model from which other rare subspecialties and the general clinical population can draw to address their workforce concerns.
Download or subscribe to the Blood Advances Talk podcast at https://soundcloud.com/blood-advances.
The complete text of this Blood Advances Talk is available as a data supplement.
Contribution: E.S. co-organized the workshop and wrote the paper; and W.K.H. co-organized and chaired the workshop and contributed to manuscript development, including writing and editing.
Conflict-of-interest disclosure: The authors declare no competing financial interests.
Correspondence: William Keith Hoots, Division of Blood Diseases and Resources, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, National Institutes of Health, 6701 Rockledge Dr, Room 9136, Bethesda, MD 20892-7950; e-mail: hootswk@nhlbi.nih.gov.
