Table 4.

Themes and sample quotes from interview participants

Theme	Quote
Knowledge and skills	“I kind of think of PORT as almost like a graduate degree, even though I know it wasn’t. But it taught me to think differently, and it taught me how to use the research process, even in sort of thinking about quality improvement things.” “The nice thing about PORT is that it was very targeted… I mean it was down and dirty. It was like: This is the research process. This is the IRB process…if really what you want is skills that you need to start doing research, you know this would be an alternative that is going to be less time, and you don’t have to do a lot of the fluff stuff a lot of my doctoral students complain about.”
Institutional culture and practice	“I think I actually would recommend it to clinicians who are interested in helping more than one person at a time but don’t have a way to address it and research gives you that way to address it.” “The research journey begun with PORT has led to expansion of other projects and work to improve patient-family and staff experience at University of Michigan Health.”
Collaborations and networks	“The mentor that I chose in the department of pediatric neurology, and I became very close and I really enjoyed working with her and getting to know her.” “PORT has given me a solid foundation to be a collaborator and to develop a network.”
Professional advancement	“I don’t think I would have been given those opportunities without having a publication like I did and I wouldn’t have gotten the publication done without PORT.” I never thought that I would leave clinical work to do research, but because of PORT… I could actually look for work in a different area. And I applied and actually got the first job I applied for because of my research background.”
Publications and presentations	“In the project that we did for PORT, we did submit it for publication. It did not get published, and that was actually a good learning experience, because the way that we approached that project taught me a lot about how to approach things differently.” “The biggest [impact of PORT] is that I’ve done 2 poster presentations at national conferences, a presentation at a national conference, and I have 2 publications that I published in national journals.”
Grants and awards	“I then got a 2-year grant through the state…to do additional research, and I became the research lead for the Department for about 5 years.”