Table 1.

Career satisfaction responses

Are there any other comments or feedback about the challenges you have faced, or professional experiences that you found especially beneficial, or other factors that influenced your career progression? (N = 154) (Cont.)
Theme	N*	Example comments
Mentorship, leadership, administration	65	The one thing that has helped me a lot is having several mentors from various disciplines.
		mentorship is key
		A lot of expectations and goals are set for early career, young investigators – which seems set in place 2 decades ago (when getting NIH grant (R01) or Renewal of an NIH grant was possible with just one submission). These same rules are being applied by those so-called "experienced professors" who are part of the committees or even chairs assessing young investigator’s achievements within merely 3 years of appointments. This routine is posing A LOT of stress on young investigators (who might have young children, balancing their family and professional life). NIH and NCATS needs to pay a particular emphasis and send a MESSAGE to such institutions to reduce unrealistic expectations and stress on young investigators. This would reduce migration of recently graduated PhDs or Postdocs to the industries. (Please DO NOT propose stress-reducing, balancing the life-work blah blah sort of courses – these are waste of time out of our busy teaching, research and family schedules!).
Money, funding, salary, debt	42	By my primary mentor telling me that they have a large pile of unfunded grants, this helped me a great deal to realize the need for persistence and continuing to seek grant funding as well as conducting research which could lead to grant funding.
		I just want to mention that i did not apply to the NIH Loan repayment program because i had no student debt, perhaps that should be an option in future surveys
		Physicians need a chance to do research! Research is more and more competitive to get grants. We submit grants and they get held up or tore apart by non-clinicians that don't understand the impact or clinical side of research. Overly-competitive, overly-critical comments is all that is received. Mice immunologists get funded through out the country to do esoteric, non-translational experiments while many important translational scientists are denied funding and pressured into more and more clinic time. It’s a terrible and broke system.
Time to complete research	17	protected time from the KL2 was by far the single biggest contributor to my success
		Protected time
		the protected time for research is not necessarily protected well from administrative and teaching within the institution. I thought my mentor did a good job of emphasis on protection from clinical obligation but the rest was not well protected and easy to get overextended, lose focus on research.
Work environment	13	Being part of women’s peer mentoring group was very beneficial and gave me the confidence for ask for what I deserved. We discussed topics like negotiation, imposter syndrome, networking and childcare. It was nice to talk with other like-minded women in science/academia who were going through similar struggles.
		Translational science has a lot of unknowns but opportunities will present themselves and young researchers need to be courageous and Universities need to recognize and reward courage and alienate young researchers or risk having the good ones transfer and lose gratitude for all the University has done for them.
		The KL2 program needs to aware of gender inequality (even at [institution]); I have been in a meeting, and clearly been spoken down to because of my gender (not by a KL2 faculty, but an invited faculty at a KL2 meeting). I should of spoken up; but was somewhat shocked at others sat quietly while this man "made fun of me." This is no longer acceptable.
Networking, connections	12	The network that I built throughout my experience as an academic researcher helped springboard me for success in industry.
		Having centralized opportunities to interact with other scholars in a longitudinal manner would be helpful. Similarly, having knowledge of broader mentorship opportunities would be helpful.
		No opportunities for tenure or advancement at my current institution. Tenure and advancement is only set up for faculty instructors.
Work/life balance	27	I strongly encourage others to participate in the National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity’s Faculty Success Program (FSP). I really struggled immensely with the transition from fellow to faculty, but the FSP program introduced me to a new mindset of better work-life balance and increased research productivity. I have a much improved outlook of my career longevity now.
		[…]the quest for "work/life balance" seems it is misleading. One should strive at being the best at work and at family life, but not at what balance implies, a 50-50 proposition. Aiming for that is a stressful, elusive quest.
		I have a balanced life but only after years of imbalance that made me sick. My illness motivated me to seek balance.
Workload	14	overall satisfied; tough at times to juggle different roles, but feel much happier straddling multiple areas than going all-in in one area. would not do it differently if starting over now
		KL2 funds are not sufficient to help hire people to help with the projects, so the projects themselves need to be doable by the PI alone, somehow.
		I think my biggest career mistake is that I am spread across too many different realms. I have a heavy clinical workload, administrative roles, and my research roles are too varied.
KL2 program content	28	The opportunity was outstanding, and I am still able to do meaningful research because of this program (although I am primarily in private practice). I just couldn't afford to stay in full time research due to financial and family obligations.
		The KL2 Scholars program has been an invaluable experience that catapulted my career. But by same token, I think "what you get out of it is what you put into it" - success seems to be defined by whether or not candidates fully engage in the opportunities made available to them.
		Politics at academic institutions can outweigh documented achievements. The KL2 program should help its trainees be promoted and achieve tenure. Otherwise, the program is just a waste of Tax Payer money and is just for appearance that something is being done to help junior faculty.
Other	36	You have to enjoy and focus on the process, not the outcomes
		This survey is poorly designed. Q32 assumes I am a clinician but leaves me no option to respond as a non-clinician. Likewise, for 27-31, I incurred zero educational debt but there was no option to respond as such for those questions.
		This is an extremely challenging career choice. Most days I am fulfilled by my work and glad I am continuing on this path. However it is not clear to me that there is sufficient support at the U to maintain a pipeline of junior faculty who will become independent physician-scientists in the future.

^*N = The number of times comments addressed the corresponding theme; exceeds number of respondents.

A table of all responses can be found in Supplementary Materials.

Comments appear as submitted, identifying information is redacted in [brackets].