One of the ideas we took from the other R25s and modified slightly is the question of what we can do in terms of experiences over the subsequent year that will further their training. So some of the other R25s had a central meeting that was sort of central to that field, and everybody would meet there for sort of a booster session. Great idea – it turned out that the expertise of both the mentors and the trainees is wide enough that there's no meeting in common for this particular group.

So what we've done instead is do more over the telephone in terms of conference call presentations but, more importantly, give the trainees more flexibility in what travel would best help their careers over the next year. So we can fund, for example, travel to a national meeting with approval of their mentor saying this makes sense for their career and then a second trip perhaps to their mentor's institution to meet with several people at another institution. So it was an interesting adaptation of a proven methodology just based on our needs, and it's worked well.

If I was asked for advice to somebody who's going to be directing an R25, I think the single biggest thing is just the sort of the colleagues you get to help mentor at the program year after year. It's certainly been a wonderful group of people here. It's been a lot of fun because we get to sort of work with the same people every year, and that's the particular strength of this program.