ITM Training Programs Help Launch Physician Scientist’s Career & Nearly $800,000 in New Funding

ITM Training Programs Help Launch Physician Scientist’s Career & Nearly $800,000 in New Funding

A University of Chicago Medicine physician scientist went from clinic work to pursuing both patient care and health research fueled by more than $200,000 in funding – career leaps that she credits to the training, mentorship, funding, and protected research time she received from the Institute for Translational Medicine’s (ITM) trainee and junior faculty programs.

“When I came to the University of Chicago and got the TL1 and KL2 funding through the ITM, that is how I began my journey as a physician scientist,” said Maylyn Martinez, MD, MSc, Assistant Professor of Medicine. “And without the ITM, I wouldn’t have had those opportunities and that time to have this very closely mentored training and skill development that has allowed me to take my career to a completely different place that has given it so much meaning.”

Martinez is one of 25 junior researchers to complete the ITM’s TL1 mentored research training program. This program has provided more than $4 million in funding to clinical and translational research trainees since 2017. She went on to receive an ITM KL2 award, which has provided more than $6 million and protected research time supporting 39 recipients since 2017. It was this award that set the stage for her subsequent National Institutes of Health grant, which provided nearly $800,000 from the National Institutes on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) to explore the most effective ways to use physical therapy in a hospital setting.

During her time as a TL1 trainee, Martinez studied the misallocation of physical therapy consults in an inpatient setting. Physical therapists are a limited resource in hospitals, she said, and it’s important to use their time wisely.

Her research showed that physical therapy is often not used effectively in hospitals. Nearly 40% of consults were for hospitalized patients who did not need them. She then showed that simple Electronic Medical Record-based clinical decision support can help doctors understand when these consults are needed. Martinez went on to publish her findings in the Journal of Hospital Medicine and the Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation

Martinez then received an ITM KL2 Award, which provides a researcher up to $130,000 in salary support and research funds per year and 75 percent protected time. She went on to be awarded a K23 from the NIMHD for $795,960 dollars over 5 years as her career continues to advance.

In this next stage, Martinez is continuing the research she started under her ITM KL2 Award, exploring disparities in hospital-acquired disability and physical therapy use during and after patients’ hospitalization.

Martinez found that at one academic hospital, Black patients, especially those with more social disadvantages like poverty, housing, education, or employment struggles, are less likely to improve or their mobility even gets worse after their illness is gone. Even though they needed physical therapy more, they were offered it less often than their White counterparts.

For her new K23 grant, Martinez is broadening this research across three different Chicago institutions: University of Chicago, Ingalls Memorial, and Northwestern. Her goal is to build an unbiased artificial intelligence predictive model that can be used on the day of admission to the hospital to predict which patients may be at risk for worsening physical function, and benefit from skilled physical therapy during their hospital stay. The training that she is receiving with funding from her K23 will help her test and implement this new tool.

Martinez has four pieces of advice for future applicants to both ITM training programs:

First, mentorship is key, so make sure to schedule regular meetings with your primary mentor and have an agenda ready for each meeting. Also make sure to have several other mentors and advisors, including peer mentors, who can help you with smaller, detail-, method-, or resource-oriented questions.
Second, be sure to be a “closer,” meaning finish your projects, write them up, and get them to a journal.
Third, take the knowledge and skills you learn from your training and career development plan. You truly do become an expert in these new areas, and you can take
Fourth, email me at maylynm@bsd.uchicago.edu if you have questions about applying!

Applications for the KL2 Awards are now open through Sept. 29! Click here to learn more and apply!

About the Institute for Translational Medicine (ITM)

The Institute for Translational Medicine (ITM) helps you live your best life by making research breakthroughs happen and getting those discoveries into the real world to improve your health as soon as possible.

The ITM is a partnership between the University of Chicago and Rush in collaboration with Advocate Aurora Health Care, Illinois Institute of Technology (Illinois Tech), Loyola University Chicago, and Endeavor Health that’s fueled by about $51 million in grants from the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences at the National Institutes of Health through its Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) Program.

The ITM is part of a network of more than 50 CTSA Program-supported hubs across the country working to slash the time it takes to develop and share new treatments and health approaches. We work with you and for you to make participating in health research easy, so that together we improve health care for all.

Join the movement and learn more about how we help researchers, physicians, community members, industry, government organizations, and others. Visit us at chicagoitm.org and connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and LinkedIn @ChicagoITM.

ITM Contact: Sara Serritella, Director of ITM Communications, serritella@uchicago.edu

This project is supported by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) that supports the Institute for Translational Medicine (ITM) through Grant Number UL1TR002389.

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