Recruiting Trainees for a Global Health Research Workforce: The National Institutes of Health Fogarty International Clinical Research Scholars Program Selection Process

Abstract

Between 2004 and 2012, the National Institutes of Health Fogarty International Clinical Research Scholars (FICRS) Program provided 1-year mentored research training at low- and middle-income country sites for American and international health science doctoral students. We describe the centralized application process, US applicant characteristics, and predictors of selection/enrollment. FICRS received 1,084 applicants representing many health professions and biomedical disciplines at 132 US academic institutions; 219 students from 72 institutions were accepted and enrolled. Medical/osteopathic students comprised 88.9% of applicants and 85.8% of enrollees. Applicants from institutions with higher applicant numbers were two times as likely to be selected. In 2012, FICRS was decentralized among 20 institutions in five consortia (Global Health Fellows), with autonomous selection processes that emphasize post-doctoral trainees. If academia, government, or charitable foundations offer future opportunities to health professions students for international research, the FICRS experience predicts that they can attract substantial numbers of motivated trainees from diverse backgrounds.

Impact of Global Health Research Training on Scholarly Productivity: The Fogarty International Clinical Research Scholars and Fellows Program

“…In 2012, FIC decentralized the Program among 20 institutions in five consortia (Global Health Program for Fellows and Scholars). 8 In prior publications, we have documented the FICRS-F Program's structure, participating NIH institutes and centers, research training sites, countries, and affiliated U.S. institutions, and the trainees' demographics and regions and countries of origin 1 ; the Program's methods of recruitment and selection of doctoral Scholars 6 To supplement the CareerTrac and PubMed data with impact-relevant variables that these sources did not capture, we surveyed 100 Program alumni between May 7 and October 23, 2013, using Vanderbilt's web-based survey and database tool, REDCap ™ (http://projectredcap.org/). The selection of survey participants was random, but selection probability was weighted such that the combination of program (U.S. and international, Scholar and Fellow) and year of training should have a distribution similar to that of the entire program.…”

Impact of Global Health Research Training on Career Trajectories: The Fogarty International Clinical Research Scholars and Fellows Program

“…Additional demographics, graphs of trainees supported by year and of research topics proposed by Fellow applicants, and reports of factors associated with success in applying for the Program are included in our prior reports. 1,17,18 We achieved a survey response rate of 94%: 38 U.S. and 34 international doctoral Scholars and 15 U.S. and 7 international postdoctoral Fellows responded (Table 1) Table 1, 47% of U.S. Scholars and 80% of U.S. Fellows had returned to their training sites after completing the training period. They reported substantial ongoing collaboration with U.S.-based mentors (63%), sitebased mentors (66%), other FICRS-F trainees at the training site (45%), FICRS-F trainee alumni who were no longer stationed at the site (24%), and FICRS-F trainees/alumni stationed elsewhere (32%).…”

“…16 U.S. predoctoral Scholars and U.S. and LMIC postdoctoral Fellows were selected through centralized processes managed by the Support Center, and international Scholar "twins" were selected by the international sites to work alongside the selected U.S. Scholars. 17,18 Traineeships began each year with a 10-to 12-day orientation held on the NIH campus in Bethesda, MD, during which trainees were instructed in safety and cultural competence, interacted with NIH officials, and met their counterparts from the international site. Subsequent training experiences including monthly webinars, presented by veteran global health faculty mentors and FICRS-F Fellows, and competitive post-fellowship travel awards encouraged alumni to continue to interact with both junior and senior investigators.…”

Recruiting Post-Doctoral Fellows into Global Health Research: Selecting NIH Fogarty International Clinical Research Fellows

“…8 This interest, plus the conviction that LMICs research experiences may be equally strategic at more advanced stages of training, spurred the FIC to expand 7,9 To assess trends in global health research interest and factors associated with competitiveness among post-doctoral trainees who sought concentrated global health research training opportunities, we examined the FICRF applicant pool, proposed research topics, selection process, and characteristics of enrollees.…”