Writing is hard work, and over the past several months a lot of AGS and ADGAP members have been writing grants in response to calls for applications from the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) and the National Institute on Aging (NIA). February 6th was the last due date, and one could almost hear the sighs of relief as Geriatrics Workforce Enhancement Program applicants, the Geriatrics Academic Career Award applicants, and those of us applying to serve as the Clinician-Scientists Transdisciplinary Aging Research Coordinating Center (Clin-STAR CC) hit our submit buttons to HRSA and NIA.
During our own collaborative grant writing efforts as team AGS crafted its response to the NIA’s call for proposals to serve as the Clin-STAR CC, I tweeted off and on about writing grants—mainly because I don’t think we talk about how hard writing a proposal can be. The truth is that no matter how many proposals you’ve written, sitting down to write that next proposal always feels like that very first time. It’s just you, the cursor blinking on that as-yet-to-be-named Word document, and the application instructions. For those of you who just submitted your first application, it bears repeating: Writing is hard work.
That work is always a little easier when you share the load with an awesome team of collaborators. Chris Carpenter (WashU), Lona Mody (UMich), Louise Walter (USCF), and I are all PIs on the AGS Clin-STAR CC proposal, which came together because of the wonderful AGS staff who are organized, proactive, and so very, very detail-oriented. The icing on the cake? Associate Directors like Emily Finlayson (UCSF), Anthony Molina (UCSD), Una Makris (UTSW), and Heather Whitson (Duke) joined the fray. It’s truly a dream team in more ways than one. Of course no grant proposal would be complete without the generosity of people like Kevin High, Ken Schmader, Bill Hazzard, John Burton, Ken Covinsky, and Andy Lee—all members of our Oversight Board and all familiar with the long-standing AGS body of work that our proposal builds upon (and thus perfectly positioned to read our prose and give us feedback).
Any proposal is always better for having multiple eyes on it, and our final Clin-STAR CC proposal is no different. And as we wrote, edited, and brainstormed our ideas, we carried the quiet voice of our north star, the late Arti Hurria, in our heads and in our hearts. I know that she, together with the late David Solomon, T. Franklin Williams, Dennis Jahnigen, and Jeff Silverstein had a moment together this past week to talk about how #AGSProud they are of the work we do to advance care for older adults.
By now you probably are wondering what our dream team proposes to do—and what has me so over the moon about this next generation of our long-standing efforts. The mission for our proposed Clin-STAR CC is two-fold: (a) To foster a national culture of intellectual generosity and innovation grounded in a commitment to grow the ranks of transdisciplinary aging-focused clinician-scientists; and (b) to stimulate and enrich the knowledge, skills, and passion of emerging and established clinician-scientists as they conduct paradigm-shifting transdisciplinary research that advances patient-centered care for older adults. Our goal is to be a galvanizing force nationally to bring early- and mid-career clinician-scientists from multiple specialties and disciplines across multiple NIA programs (e.g., GEMSSTAR, Butler-Williams, Beeson, MSTAR, NIA Diversity Supplement Awardees, other NIA networks) together with clinician-scientist leaders in aging and NIA/NIH leaders.
I confess, as AGS CEO, I may be a bit biased on this one, but I think AGS as an organization is well-positioned to lead the Clin-STAR CC, and I couldn’t be prouder of the proposal we submitted on Friday, February 1st, at 3:59 pm. It weighed in at 542 pages, including almost 60 letters of support from national organizations, coalitions, and NIA and VA networks and centers. Our proposed Clin-STAR CC builds on the great work that AGS (together with the Alliance for Academic Internal Medicine) has been doing since 1994 under grants from the NIA (for our U13 GEMSSTAR Conference Series), as well as from The John A. Hartford Foundation and the Atlantic Philanthropies (who funded the Jahnigen Career Development Program), and the T. Franklin Williams Program—both precursor awards to the NIA GEMSSTAR (Grants for Early Medical/Surgical Specialists Transition to Aging Research) program.
We’ve reported on our activities in service of this cause over the years in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society (JAGS)—click here for a virtual compilation of all our articles. This long-standing work has led to an increased focus on improving person-centered care for older adults across specialties, including initiatives led by the American College of Surgeons (ACS) and the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) building upon our prior work and focused on improving the quality of surgical and emergency department care for older people. Not to be outdone, the Cancer and Aging Research Group (CARG) has pulled together stakeholders (including the major societies representing oncologists and hematologists) to improve care of older adults with cancer, and the American College of Cardiology (ACC) has long-standing programs and conferences working towards the same goal. These are but four examples of ways specialty champions who we (and the NIA/NIH) have nurtured are improving care for older adults.
I am #AGSProud of the work we have done and, regardless of the funding decision, we will continue to do. Nurturing and supporting a transdisciplinary community of researchers from multiple disciplines and specialties is so important for achieving our vision for the future—one where older people have access to high-quality, person-centered care informed by geriatrics principles, which will allow us all to contribute to our communities and maintain our health, safety, and independence as we age.