National Clinician Scholars Program

Growing out of four decades of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholars program, an independent group of community, health system, policy and academic partners came together in 2016 to create and launch the new National Clinician Scholars Program (NCSP), a unique two-year, site-based post-graduate training program for physicians and nurses with doctoral degrees. The NCSP sites are Duke University; the University of California, Los Angeles; the University of Michigan; the University of Pennsylvania; and Yale University. The National Clinician Scholars Program is designed to foster critical thinking and data-driven inquiry and scholarship to transform the practice of health care. The program trains future health-system leaders in rigorous research methods, implementation science, and communications and leadership skills for roles in systems innovation, policy leadership, and academic research. The NCSP offers a unique platform to transform these interprofessional scholars into health system change agents who leverage policy-relevant research and professional partnerships to create new practice models that reduce disparities, improve the quality of care, and reduce costs. Its nurse and physician scholars are positioned to drive change in academic health centers, health-care systems, government agencies, foundations, and think tanks around the world.