Mentored career development awards for the development of surgeon-scientists

Career development awards are important sources of support for surgeons who aim to become independent investigators. However, many challenges and opportunities need to be considered when deciding whether an individual is an appropriate career development award candidate. A quintessential example of the mentor-based career development award to support scientific training is the National Institutes of Health K award. In this article, we focus on issues that face surgeons interested in applying for these K series National Institutes of Health–mentored career development awards. We discuss the different types of K awards and the challenges they may pose for surgeons and provide recommendations for how to determine if a career development award is an appropriate approach given one's career track and institutional environment. Lastly, we discuss how to effectively manage K awards and how to increase the odds of achieving a K to R award transition. The career development award can be a highly effective mechanism to help develop the careers of the next generation of surgeon-scientists, but successfully obtaining these awards requires an assessment of whether the career development award is the appropriate mechanism for the applicant and how to optimize the probability for success.