Design and Implementation of an Infrastructure Program to Support Clinical Research in Surgery

Barriers to active participation in clinical research among academic surgeons include insufficient research training and mentorship, increased clinical demands, lack of protected research time, limited access to resources, complex regulatory requirements, and a highly competitive research funding environment. We describe the development and implementation of a novel clinical research infrastructure program designed to attenuate these barriers and increase clinical research engagement and productivity in a large academic surgery department. Interim outcomes show a high utilization of program services across all divisions within the department, a substantial increase in new clinical research protocols, more applications submitted to funding agencies, and a high level of user satisfaction. We discuss how a departmental infrastructure program can simultaneously address barriers faced by surgeon clinical researchers and foster continuation of the longstanding tradition of innovation and discovery in academic surgery.