Tips for Grant Writers

November 22nd, 2010 by pcahn

After I finish reviewing a stack of grant proposals, I’m reminded of how few applicants take their audience into account. Many proposals include obscure acronyms, few paragraph breaks, and no succinct summary of the research question.

A grant reviewer in the sciences has released a similar list of suggestions for grant writers. Not coincidentally, the reviewer advises applicants to show empathy for the overworked reader. Some of the tips:

  • Use headers. Bold them and use them to show the flow of your argument.
  • Include figures and visual aids to illustrate key data or methods.
  • Give as much attention to the broader impact and diversity statements as you do to the project.

For BU faculty, we have additional resources available to help conform your grant to the new NIH format. Of course, reading too much advice can sometimes serve as a distraction from the actual writing of the grant.

The overriding message to keep in mind is to think like a reviewer. What are the criteria that reviewers are looking for? What formatting, figures, and language can you use that enhance clarity? In most cases, a reviewer comes to a conclusion by the first page and then looks for confirming evidence. Make that first page shine.

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The End of Tenure?

November 18th, 2010 by pcahn

Advocates for granting tenure to university professors usually base their arguments on the principle of academic freedom. Cary Nelson, president of the American Association of University Professors, defends tenure as necessary to shield faculty from capricious complaints. What if a parent complained that her child was being taught about evolution? Surely we value the spirit of free exchange in higher education enough to protect it.

When university presidents discuss tenure, they frame it through a different lens. In a poll of 30 U.S. college presidents published in the Atlantic, only 4 said the abolition of tenure would stifle academic freedom. In fact, 17 of them--the largest block of respondents--said that eliminating tenure would have no effect at all.

Without tenure, all faculty would be put on limited-term contracts, requiring an intensive system of review. At least with tenure systems, universities are forced to make a choice of promoting or releasing a faculty member rather than keeping on a mediocre professor year after year. Still, in a competitive academic market, no university wants to be the first to end tenure. Only if a large group of institutions coordinated their decision could widespread defection be avoided.

Nelson's point about tenure freeing up academics to publish unpopular views does not have much relevance on a medical campus. I see that faculty receive validation for their work from their peers or students, not from politics. If tenure promotes institutional loyalty and allows for long-term planning, than its benefits outweigh its downsides.

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An Urgent Call

November 16th, 2010 by pcahn

The National Academy of Science, National Academy of Engineering, and Institute of Medicine issued a report calling for an increase of minority students in science and engineering. Underrepresented minorities comprise just 9% of the college-educated workforce in STEM fields (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics). It would take a tripling of those numbers to reflect their portion of minorities in the general population.

The scarcity of minorities in these fields will not come as a surprise to anyone in academic medicine. The specific recommendations of the report, however, are novel. It identifies undergraduate retention as a key area. Minorities pursue science degrees in equal numbers to their peers, but fewer complete their degrees. Some reasons for attrition are financial, but the drop out rates can also result from inadequate support networks.

Freeman Hrabowski, contributor to the report and President of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, describes how his campus made inroads in encouraging minority students. They conducted focus groups to understand how different groups felt about the problem or if they even acknowledged it. They also engaged students with a more collaborative curriculum and opportunities to conduct research with faculty members.

The physical separation of the medical campus makes mentoring of undergraduates more difficult, but it is one way that we can prepare the pipeline for a more diverse faculty.

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Gen X Faculty

November 15th, 2010 by pcahn

The Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education, a research consortium based at Harvard's Graduate School of Education, conducted a survey of its member institutions about junior faculty satisfaction. As part of the project, researchers interviewed 16 faculty members born between 1964 and 1980, the cohort known as Generation X.

Although the sample size was small, it included faculty in fields as diverse as medicine and theater and roles from professor to provost. The surprising conclusion was that Gen X faculty perceive no clash in generational cultures in the workplace. They certainly prioritize differently than older colleagues, but they share a commitment to excellence in scholarship and institutional loyalty.

The area where Xers may stand out the most is their struggle to balance work and life. Dual-career couples and parents feel the pinch acutely. They do not expect their universities to solve the problem, but they welcome programs to mitigate the stress. These programs should have as their goals mentoring, community-building, and collegiality. In, this way, Gen X is leading the way for improving the work environment for all faculty.

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The Power of Adjectives

November 12th, 2010 by pcahn

Academics tend to be open-minded people and understand how unproductive stereotypes can be. Despite this tolerance, hidden bias creeps in.

Take letters of recommendation. This time of year faculty receive requests to write on behalf of students applying to graduate school, trainees applying to faculty positions, and colleagues applying for fellowships. There's a conventional format for these letters, which are uniformly positive.

Yet, in a study published in the Journal of Applied Psychology, researchers found that letters of recommendation for junior faculty positions at a research university showed a distinct pattern. Letters for female candidates stressed their "supportive" and "compassionate" qualities. Letters for male candidates characterized them as "confident" and "ambitious."

Both kinds of adjectives have a place in academia, but when search committees reviewed the letters, they rated the male attributes more highly. Without intending to, letter writers may be disadvantaging female candidates. The NIH is now funding a study to see if this pattern holds true in medical schools.

Inside Higher Ed's  report on this research generated over two dozen comments. The study's authors say a candidate can show the research to potential recommenders to make them aware of hidden bias. Of course, as some readers pointed out, another solution is to educate search committees to value the communal qualities associated with women. Because when it comes to obtaining leadership roles, being known as "caring" and "nurturing" won't help a candidate.

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On the Wall

November 11th, 2010 by pcahn

Among its libraries, office buildings, and dining halls, Harvard hangs 750 oil portraits of illustrious university citizens. Of those, 690 depict white men and only 2 are of minorities.

According to a Boston Globe report, Harvard is now devoting funds to adding images of women and minorities. The move signals to current students and faculty that diversity is not a fad but an essential part of the institution's history.

Boston University's School of Medicine also celebrates its forefathers with a wall of portraits near the main entrance:

Portraits 013

It's an imposing line-up that effectively conveys the longevity of the school. But it also paints a limited picture of the inclusive history of our campus. If there are images of the first Native American MD or the first African-American woman physician, they are not prominent. Celebrating our past visually makes everyone here today feel welcome.

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Your First Patient

November 10th, 2010 by pcahn

We know from Mary Roach's oddly cheerful book, Stiff, that human cadavers play an unseen but important role in everything from bullet testing to automobile safety. Of course, cadavers are also central to medical education. Learning anatomy by dissecting an anonymous body is a rite of passage for future doctors.

It's also an expensive ritual. As medical imaging technology improves, some medical schools are seeking to replace live dissection with computer simulation. One school in Indiana is going in the opposite direction. They are integrating dissection into the entire curriculum by making the cadaver a doctor's first patient.

As reported in the Chronicle of Higher Education, students at Indiana University Northwest meet relatives of the deceased to gain a fuller picture of how the person lived, not just how she died. The students learn a more holistic approach to medicine, applying the lessons of their histology class to the tissues they examined.

For their part, the family members gain insight into their family's health history. The husband of one donor plans to attend the graduation of the students who dissected his wife. This approach models not only good pedagogy, but also good clinical practice.

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Taxing Residents

November 9th, 2010 by pcahn

The Supreme Court heard arguments yesterday in a case with both financial and philosophical repercussions for medical schools. Employers and employees must pay a portion of their salaries to the federal government for Social Security and Medicare. Students working for the university while studying are exempt from the taxes.

In 2005, the U.S. Treasury Department ruled that medical residents do not qualify for the exemption, which was intended to support students working part-time. Medical residents work full-time and then some, so the government reasoned that they should be treated as employees and subject to the tax. At stake is $700 million in additional revenue.

The Mayo Foundation and the University of Minnesota appealed the decision, winning a round in court, but then a federal appeals court overturned the ruling. In appealing the case to the  Supreme Court, the petitioners received friend of the court briefs from a consortium of academic medical centers including Boston Medical Center.  They argue that residents are indeed students in that they attend classes, receive training, and learn about patient care.

The Supreme Court did not seem to indicate its thinking. The debate reminds me of the conflict between universities and doctoral students over unionization. In the end, many graduate students made the case that they were both students and employees and won the right to unionize. Medical residents already belong to unions, so how does that complicate the question of whether they are students or employees?

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Setting a Good Example

November 8th, 2010 by pcahn

The 2010 meeting of the Association of American Medical Colleges concludes this week in Washington, DC. The association's president, Darrell Kirch, MD, called on the members present to prepare themselves for the future of academic medicine.

One of the reforms he called for stood out because it called for changes in how faculty members behave not how institutions operate. When it comes to designing a sustainable system of health care, the example should begin with physicians and medical school faculty. Unfortunately, this is not always the case, as Kirch notes:

  • Data indicate that, despite our knowledge and experience, our faculty and staff members are not always wise consumers of heath care. We often do not receive basic preventive services or good continuity of care, and too often we overuse tests and procedures despite the best medical evidence.

The same innovative health care delivery systems that we deploy in our communities can be aimed at our own faculty and staff. Academic medical centers are employers, too, and shoulder costs related to workers' health. By modeling good health practices, we can not only set an example for patients but also assert leadership in the uncertain future of health care.

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Online Privacy

November 5th, 2010 by pcahn

Within a week of signing up for Facebook, one doctor I know received a friend request from a name he didn't recognize. Then, it dawned on him, the potential "friend" was one of his patients. Most professors can share a similar story of friend requests from students and the thinking that goes into the decision to accept. Do I want to remain accessible and open up new channels of communication with trainees? Or do I want to maintain a private life online?

One way to tackle this dilemma is to realize that the whole notion of privacy on the Internet is antiquated. Even when you think you are erecting walls to protect your personal data, new technologies are poking holes in those protections. For example:

  • Do you ever log on to a social media site from Starbucks? Most wireless connections do not encrypt all the information you send to your account. A new browser extension, Firesheep, collects log ins from those around you and lets you impersonate them online.
  • You may think your personal information is safe when you reject a friend request on Facebook. A new feature, however, makes it harder to reject a request outright. The first option is to accept a request or "not now." Clicking "not now" removes the request from the screen, but still allows the person to see parts of your profile unless you hit a second button to reject them outright.
  • Facebook does make it possible to control information through privacy settings. But to do so requires checking 170 different options in 50 separate categories. Increasingly, the default position is to allow more access to your data. This graph nicely illustrates how much of your information is automatically revealed if you don't take proactive steps.
  • So you think you'll outsmart Facebook by keeping a barebones profile just so you can have access to your friends' postings. Even with no data to go on, Facebook can triangulate information about you using your friends' profiles and target you with specific ads.

So, it may be a false choice whether to accept the patient's or student's request as a friend. They and others can still find out about you on-line. One option is to join a privacy-centered social media site like Diaspora. More realistically, just assume that everything you post will be visible, and surf accordingly.

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