Our department is well known in Canada for teaching excellence and
this is supported by the high number of applications for the residency program
and the high rate of success of our residents on the fellowship examinations.
Research, on the other hand, has been an area of weakness. Until recently only a
few department members showed a serious interest in basic or clinical
investigation. We are currently experiencing a renewed interest in clinical
investigation.
Several factors may be responsible: improved morale after issues
surrounding hospital amalgamation have been accepted, an emerging group of
young faculty who wish to go beyond clinical and teaching excellence and
contribute to advancing the practice of anesthesia, and, importantly, the
establishment of the Chairman�s Research Fund (CRF).
The CRF was established by the Department Chairman, Dr. Homer Yang, and
consists of a department wide tithe of $1 350.00 per faculty per year. It provides
approximately $100 000.00 per year to support research. In the past, faculty who
wished to carry out research had to find their own source of funding and then hire,
train and supervise assistants. This included payroll, budgetary, financial
reporting, and other administrative activities. With these funds the department can
now offer these services from a team of research administrators and assistants
under the direction of the Vice Chair of Research, Dr. Howard Nathan. Research
support is provided on a competitive basis, applications for support being
received every fall and adjudicated by the Research Committee.
This approach
has brought great efficiencies to the process of conducting clinical research and
the team has had success in implementing and conducting clinical studies. It is the
Vice Chair�s opinion that knowing that projects can be completed by this team
without the need for involvement by the investigator in administrative activities
has encouraged them to bring their creative ideas forward and apply for funding.
It is understood that the primary role of the CRF is to allow investigators to
establish a track-record strong enough to allow successful competition for
extramural funding.
The quality and amount of research activity currently underway suggests that a
critical mass of researchers has been reached and a culture of scientific enquiry is
becoming established. It seems reasonable to hope that success in obtaining
external funding from large peer-review grant agencies will follow and that
productivity will grow. This growth of research in the department is, however,
still fragile. It can only be sustained by increased intra-departmental funding to
support investigators on the very challenging road to sustainable peer-reviewed
investigation.
