Enhancing the Professional Culture of Academic Health Science Centers

The future of basic and translational research in health care depends on the ability of large, complex health science centers to educate, discover new answers to complex problems, and operate in the service of the public good. So what ingredients are required for successful research in academic health science centers (AHSCs)? This volume presents a number of compelling, international stories about personal and professional investments in research activities as well as the challenges, opportunities, and satisfactions. Each chapter explores concepts for successful research with a focus on the ways communities of practice form and sustain themselves in this complex environment. They explore questions such as creating and sustaining community, promoting innovation, transitions in leadership, and cross-generation collaboration from a personal perspective. They also present a series of portraits of scientists at work: building relationships, supporting one another, and contributing to their fields of study in unique ways. Enhancing the Professional Culture of Academic Health Science Centers offers enlightening reading for researchers, administrators, and policy makers interested in present and future research activities in AHSCs, who will be inspired by narratives of perseverance, passion, generosity, and generativity that fuel research in the centers.

Thomas S. Inui ScM, MD, MACP and Richard M. Frankel PhD respectively Director of Research, IU Center for Global Health, Professor of Medicine, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis; Professor of Medicine and Geriatrics, Senior Scientist, Regenstrief Institute, Indiana University School of Medicine, Associate Director, Center for Implementing Evidence Based Practice, Richard L. Roudebush Veteran's Administration Medical Center, Indianapolis, USA.

Preface. About the authors. What's the story? A composite narrative of success in science in academic health science centers. Challenges and ingredients for success in the health science enterprise: a view from two corner offices. Breaking out of the silos in the heartland: making a clinical and translational science award program sing in Indiana. Sparking and sustaining the essential functions of research: what supports translation of research into health care? Answers from the group health experience. Sparking and sustaining the essential functions of research: what promotes discovery? Experience and insights from a medical school in China. Sparking and sustaining the essential functions of research: how the seeds were sown and grown at a summer camp for young clinicians. Sparking and sustaining the essential functions of research: cultivating 'research mind' - reason, dreams, and discovery. The relationship-centered care research network: its birth, life-cycle, and lessons learned along the way. Successful aging in research.