Careful
thought went into establishing a system for funding pediatric medical research
in the CFRC at Le Bonheur. The CFRC leadership recognized that a major crisis
in the medical community was the slow and steady decline over the past 20
years in the number of pediatric physician scientists. In fact, it is now
recognized that this shortage has reached crisis proportions: "The
number of pediatrician-scientists is critically low, and remedies to increase
their number must be implemented as rapidly as possible. Incentives to maintain
an appropriate number of pediatrician-scientists should be considered to
ensure that infants, children, adolescents, and young adults of 2010 have
access to the knowledge developed by pediatrician-scientists." (The
Future of Pediatric Education II: Organizing Pediatric Education to Meet
the Needs of Infants, Children, Adolescents, and Young Adults in the 21st
Century, Pediatrics, 105:163, 2000). The CFRC leadership recognized that
an investment in the support and training of young pediatrician scientists
to allow them to become independent and productive investigators would pay
off in amazing dividends over the 30 plus year duration of these individuals'
research careers, allowing an incredible scientific contribution to the
health of children over a sustained period of time. Therefore, three categories
of research grants were instituted. The purpose of the Children's Foundation Research Grants program is to support basic and clinical research in pediatrics at Le Bonheur Children's Hospital and the University of Tennessee, Memphis. To strengthen competitive research, these funds are used in concert with extramural funding sources to develop a synergistic research environment within the Children's Foundation Research Center and at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center, Memphis. An extramural funding source is considered to be a national organization that pays at least 10% overhead and uses peer review to evaluate research proposals. Three types of proposals are considered: Cannon Awards, Supplemental Awards and New Investigator Awards.
