The NIH goes to great lengths to assure that researchers in the rheumatic diseases are represented on the committees that review research proposals, although the main committee reviewing rheumatic disease research proposals also reviews research proposals in skin diseases, as the parent institute funds research in both the rheumatic and skin diseases. Herein lies the problem. Rheumatologists, like C57Bl6 mice, eat our young (researchers). Moreover, eating our young is only an appetizer for gobbling our peers.
Lessons from Lab Rodents
Rheumatologists, as a group, tend to be detail oriented, critical thinkers with strong opinions, and these same characteristics make them extremely rigorous as grant reviewers. But researchers in the area of rheumatic diseases tend to be more skeptical than many other groups that seem more supportive and inwardly focused. So, when rheumatologists review grants, they see the empty half of the glass. The clear consequence of this approach is that a grant proposal reviewed by a rheumatologist will end up at the 12th percentile but a grant proposal of identical merit reviewed by an investigator from a more supportive group will be judged to be in the 8th percentile. Both grants are rated as outstanding, but only one will be supported—and the people running the NIH say we have no choice, this is what our outside experts tell us to do.
Obviously, telling reviewers who are rheumatologists to automatically score rheumatology grant proposals more highly is inappropriate and should be discouraged. Nonetheless, adjusting our glasses so that they impart a somewhat more rosy tinge would help support research in the rheumatic diseases. Unlike our mice, rheumatologists can be taught not to eat their young or to gorge on the mutton of our senior investigators.
Dr. Cronstein is the Paul R. Esserman Professor of Medicine and director, Clinical and Translational Science Institute, New York University School of Medicine in New York.
