"My program" died Friday. It hit me pretty hard. The program was called the Fellows Symposia - Fellows have finished med school and opt in for another 2-4 years to specialize in a particular area of medicine.

This was the "Movie Stars of Medicine" program I worked on at GSK. It was two days of solid education for fellows in pulmonary or critical care training programs and one fellow from every training program in the country was able to come. GSK turned it over to the ATS a few years ago, so when I came to the ATS - I got it back!

So much fun.

No secret that the regulatory environment has changed for medical education - and transparency of where the money to pay for that education comes from.

We submitted the grant for the 2009 program back in September. And revised it in October. And totally built a new program in November. And waited.

We heard on Friday - grant request denied. No program anymore. Which is really sad because this would have been its 18th year and the fellows all look forward to it.

It's hard to see a program like this die. Not fatal once you get over the initial shock waves, but hard nonetheless. Now to build something new for 2010 for the fellows - that could be the fun part.