---

Hello CAIRIBU community!

I want to introduce a program that may be relevant to many of you as you plan the next stage of your research career: the HEAL National K12 Clinical Pain Career Development Program (HEAL K12). This K12 supports clinical pain research broadly, not any single condition or mechanism, so it would be a good fit for anyone in this group interested in studying interstitial cystitis/bladder pain syndrome, chronic prostatitis, or other forms of chronic pelvic pain.

HEAL K12 is a three-year, mentored career-development award administered by the Chronic Pain and Fatigue Research Center at the University of Michigan and supported by the NIH HEAL initiative under Award K12NS130673. I co-direct the program with Dave Williams, PhD, and Steve Harte, PhD. Our goal is to strengthen the national clinical pain research workforce by preparing clinician-scientists from a broad range of disciplines, specialties, institutions, and geographic regions to become successful independent investigators.

Unlike many training mechanisms, HEAL K12 scholars remain at their home institutions for the full three years. This program is focused on scholars that are at institutions without strong clinical pain research programs and who thus would have difficulty receiving an independent K award because of a lack of such mentoring. Accordingly, each scholar follows an individualized career-development plan built around three layers of mentorship: a primary mentor at the home institution, a nationally recognized pain researcher, and advisors with lived pain experience who help bring patient perspective into the research. Scholars also take part in quarterly progress reviews, a monthly career development seminar, and the annual HEAL K12 Symposium and Summer Pain Short Course in Ann Arbor.

Awards provide up to $100,000 per year in salary, fringe befits up to $32,000, $2,500 in annual travel support, and $50,000 per year in research costs, for up to three years.

Candidates must hold a clinical doctoral degree (e.g., MD, DO, DDS, DNP, PharmD, DPT, clinical PhD) and be faculty within their first five years of appointment, or postdoctoral fellows with a pending faculty appointment. Applicants must be U.S. citizens or permanent residents, and their department chair must commit to the required 75% protected time. Clinical trials are not permitted under this mechanism.

Applications follow a two-tier process. Candidates first submit a two-page Letter of Intent that includes a brief description of the proposed research, a statement of training needs, the name of a home-institution mentor, an eligibility statement, and an updated NIH Biosketch. Competitive letters of intent are then invited to submit a full proposal for review by the HEAL K12 study section.

If you are an early-career clinician-scientist looking for structured, well-mentored time to establish yourself in clinical pain research, I encourage you to take a look at this program. Questions about eligibility, timelines, or the application process can be directed to UM-HEALK12@umich.edu

Don Clauw, MD

Co-Director, HEAL National K12 Clinical Pain Career Development Program