The Research Committee has, once again, had a great privilege to review more than 30 applications to be considered for funding. These applications are widely distributed within our specialty and include issues in pediatric, adult acquired surgery, and thoracic surgery. I was struck by the broad interests of the applicants that, even within the subspecialties of cardiothoracic surgery, seemed to indicate a great and growing respect for why things happen the way they do and how we can perfect abnormalities to the benefit of patients. Classically, when we review grants, we talk about, "Does this applicant address the mechanism of disease or is the applicant flailing about simply making observations?" I can say that the quality of the applications continues to improve and that they are demonstrating a honing of the research mind. Many of our applications come from fellows in established laboratories, the type of applications we might expect from institutions that have charted the way, so to speak, in investigative work. But a good number of others, and this I believe is the really good news, are coming from institutions that have not over the past decades demonstrated a strong interest in fundamental research. To have a strong specialty, it is clear that the research interests need to be broad-based and incorporate more, not fewer, institutions.
I was particularly struck this year at the Board meeting by the commitment to continuation of funding in spite of less-than-optimistic economic news. Our Board has cherished the research effort and has done everything humanly possible to enable our best applicants to continue their work with our financial blessing. The sentiment is broad-based among the Board that without priming our academic leaders of the future with funds and with the knowledge that the establishment in thoracic surgery considers what they are doing of paramount importance, the prognosis for our continuation as leaders in academic medicine is less than optimistic. Accordingly, it is clear to me that we will find a way. We must enjoin our specialty in the process of funding our scholars and academics of the future. Without question, we have the best and brightest in spite of ominous warnings relative to reduced applications and a drying up of certain surgical procedures. Our specialty is robust in that it addresses a wide variety of thoracic illnesses, and we have only just begun to touch the surface in our understanding of many of them. We, as a specialty, depend upon the inquisitive mind, a creative instinct, and the laboratory-based training of our practitioners to come up with advanced care paradigms and treatment strategies. Without question the technical aspects have been well served throughout the residency programs, and we are all highly regarded for those skills. Those skills in and of themselves will not, however, sustain us in the future if we disregard our legacy to be creative and to solve those mechanisms of diseases that are out there and troubling us each day. I salute the candidates, my fellow research committee members, and the Board for all that has been accomplished.