Dispersion of NIH Funding to Surgical Departments Is Contracting

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: The Blue Ridge Institute for Medical Research (BRIMR) ranking of NIH funding is the benchmark for reporting academic research productivity. We sought to understand trends in BRIMR-reported NIH funding to departments of surgery. METHODS: We analyzed BRIMR reporting of surgery vs internal medicine department NIH funding from 2011 to 2021. RESULTS: A total of 76 (50%) Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME)-accredited surgery departments are currently BRIMR-ranked, compared with 116 (77%) LCME-accredited medicine departments. This represents a decline over the past decade of 14% for BRIMR-ranked surgery departments vs an increase of 5% for medicine departments (p < 0.001). While there was a nonsignificant increase in the number of surgical principal investigators (PIs) during this period (557 to 649, p = 0.06), medicine PIs increased significantly (4,377 to 5,224, p = 0.001). Surgery and medicine departments both experienced a 40% increase in inflation-adjusted NIH funding in the past decade, but this was concentrated to a significantly increased number of surgery PIs/program compared with the growth of medicine PIs/program (p < 0.0001). The 15 top-ranked surgery departments, of which only 3 entered this tier since 2011, received 54% of this funding (72% for the top 25 programs), 32 times more than the 15 lowest ranked programs ($244 million vs $7.5 million, p < 0.01) (Figure).FigureCONCLUSION: The number of surgery departments receiving NIH grants has contracted over the past decade, with a relatively constant group of high-award programs receiving the majority of funds. Broadening surgery department funding could enhance access for surgeon-scientists to perform NIH-supported research.