Western Journal of Emergency Medicine: Integrating Emergency Care with Population Health

Introduction: Receiving an R01 grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is regarded as amajor accomplishment for the physician researcher and can be used as a means of scholarly activityfor core faculty in emergency medicine (EM). However, the Accreditation Council for GraduateMedical Education requires that a grant must be obtained for it to count towards a core facultymember’s scholarly activity, while the American Osteopathic Association states that an applicationfor a grant would qualify for scholarly activity whether it is received or not. The aim of the study wasto determine if a medical degree disparity exists between those who successfully receive an EM R01grant and those who do not, and to determine the publication characteristics of those recipients.

Methods: We queried the NIH RePORTER search engine for those physicians who received anR01 grant in EM. Degree designation was then determined for each grant recipient based on aweb-based search involving the recipient’s name and the location where the grant was awarded.The grant recipient was then queried through PubMed central for the total number of publicationspublished in the decade prior to receiving the grant.

Results: We noted a total of 264 R01 grant recipients during the study period; of those who receivedthe award, 78.03% were allopathic physicians. No osteopathic physician had received an R01 grantin EM over the past 10 years. Of those allopathic physicians who received the grant, 44.17% held adual degree. Allopathic physicians had an average of 48.05 publications over the 10 years prior togrant receipt and those with a dual degree had 51.62 publications.

Conclusion: Allopathic physicians comprise the majority of those who have received an R01 grantin EM over the last decade. These physicians typically have numerous prior publications and anadvanced degree.