ORS/OREF/AAOS Grant Writing Workshop (GWW) Francis Y. Lee, MD, PhD – Chair
Strategies for Success: Tools for Investigators in Challenging Times
May 17-18, 2012, Long Beach California

For more than 15 years, the Orthopaedic Research Society (ORS), Orthopaedic Research and Education Foundation (OREF) and American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS) have offered the Grant Writing Workshop. Through this workshop, new investigators have developed the skills and strategies to successfully secure funding for clinical, translational and basic research. (Attendees, the historic Queen Mary, Long Beach, California, May 2012)

The ORS/OREF/AAOS Grant Writing Workshop held at Long Beach, California on May 17-18, 2012 was a huge success. Dr. Francis Y. Lee, Vice-Chair of Research and Associate Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery at Columbia University Medical Center has been chairing this premiere educational workshop since 2011. Dr. Lee, an active orthopaedic clinician-scientist has maintained a high-caliber research program through funding of two concurrent NIH R01 grants and a Department of Defense Grant. He is one of less than a dozen orthopaedic surgeons with NIH R01 grants. While the NIH has released reports that NIH funding success is at the lowest rate ever, former workshop attendees have demonstrated a success rate of 40%, a reflection of the high educational content and academic caliber of the attendees' grant proposals.

More than 50 orthopaedic surgeons and scientists attended the recent GWW. Of special note is the report that there are about 25 orthopaedic attendings, fellows and residents who are pursuing scholarly tracts through clinical trials and translational research. "There seems to be an increasing interest in translational research by orthopaedic surgeons over the past few years," stated Dr. Lee. The workshop was led by 17 faculty members consisting of 6 orthopaedic surgeons (Drs. Francis Y. Lee, Chair, Columbia University, Mathias Bostrom, Hospital for Special Surgery, Ted Miclau, UC San Francisco, James Luck, UCLA, Ranjan Gupta, UC Irvine and Kurt P. Spindler, MD, Vanderbilt University Sports Medicine), renowned basic scientists and representatives of funding agencies. This year, the workshop format was changed to diversify grant application strategies and to promote networking among orthopaedic surgeons and scientists.

Dr. Lee is committed to mentoring and encouraging young orthopaedic investigators to seek NIH funding grants, the gold standard for tenure appointments at many institutions. Dr. Lee will lead another GWW in Baltimore next May, 2013.