The relative attrition of physician-scientists in neurology has been an area of concern for many years. Efforts to identify factors that distinguish success vs failure in this field have been extensive, yet the attrition has neither stopped nor significantly slowed. When training young physician-scientists, experts hold differing opinions on the value of maintaining continuity in their research subspecialty from their Ph.D. training period through their late careers, often debating a loss of momentum of research progress versus a need for diversity of research skills and exposure.

To determine if maintaining research continuity within a subspecialty area of neurosciences from the early training period to late career yields a greater likelihood of a physician-scientists’ success in research.

Areas of research focus in 51 neurology residency alumni who had also trained as MD-PhDs (2003-2005) were identified from institutions with the highest NINDS funding and were assessed for research continuity by comparing their training period authorships with their first R01 applications, deeming it present if evidence of repeated authorship in the said area was prevalent. By utilizing publicly available data from SCOPUS, Pubmed, and NIH RePORT; h-indices, citation rates, research topics, and author publication rates were examined for physician-scientists both with and without continuity present in their career.  Continuity was then compared against their success or failure to achieve an R01 award and the time to acquire it.

The data demonstrated that research continuity impacted the timing of when a R01 was obtained, as well as on the eventual acquisition of a R01. Impacts on total numbers of publications, publication rates, and h-indices, were also noted.

This study highlights research continuity as an important and modifiable variable during the training period of physician-scientists that may improve the chance of success for research independence.