Institutes of Health (NIH)-sponsored K awards and

“The ongoing development of the specialty and its need to contribute more substantially to the body of medical and health systems knowledge will depend on the growth of research and a greater commitment to a culture of ongoing inquiry in family medicine.”1 Many commentators have written about the lack of research production within the discipline of family medicine.2-11 Since the early 1980s, a lack of research production was recognized as a problem in family medicine,12 and solutions such as improved training, mentoring, support systems, protected time, and fund-ing were proposed.12-14 Studies published in the 1990s found that a lack of protected time for research was still a significant issue in university family medicine departments15,16 and residencies.17 Several commenta-tors have suggested that resources currently exist to fund the protected time and training required to develop successful research proposals, namely the Nationa