Multidisciplinary K12 Posted on October 17, 2007 Jordan F. Karp (bio) describes his role in a K12, an institutional funding mechanism.

The K12 is really an institutional K mechanism. So the university itself applies for the K award and there’s several different kinds of K12 awards. So the University of Pittsburgh for instance has a women’s health K12 that’s starting and my K12 is called multidisciplinary clinical scholars K12 and it funds 75 percent of my salary and it’s for four years and it gives me $25,000 a year for research. So it’s not as much as a traditional K award, but it helps and it’s paying my salary. So it’s been really a godsend because I applied for a K23 twice and I applied for the K12 on the third try. So this is I think a good mechanism in lean times.
It also suits my interests because it’s really to develop people who have interests that transcend more than one discipline and since I’m interested in both depression and persistent pain, the way that the K12 is set up you have to have a mentor for more than one discipline. So I have a mentor from psychiatry and also a mentor from pain medicine. And we are obligated as part of the K12 to meet monthly as a group to go over my study and troubleshoot any problems and also just to discuss career issues. And it’s useful for both of them I think to get the other person’s perspective. So overall it’s been a good thing for me.

Well I think that the multidisciplinary aspect really appealed to me because I’m just sort of bored with just studying depression and people without medical comorbidities because I’m very interested in internal medicine and the psychiatric ramifications of living with chronic medical conditions so it really fits me to a T to have to combine more than one discipline.

« Back to Article