How frequent is turnover of residency program directors?

[nauru]

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As the title says...

How frequently do PDs typically hold their position? I expect there will be some variance by institution, but is the norm generally less than 3 years? Around 6 years? 10 years or more?

 

[mimelim]

Depends on the hospital, specialty, etc. The range is quite large, I'm not sure what an average would really do for you in terms of making decisions. I'd say <3 years is short, but everything after that, it depends.


ps. Kudos on 7 posts in 7 years. That is impressive.

 

[Light at end of tunnel]

Very interesting question. Maybe @aProgDirector can weigh in?

Might I ask what prompted your inquiry? Are you thinking of becoming a PD?

 

[nauru]

1990s data for Internal Medicine only, but perhaps better than nothing.

"From the beginning of the cohort study (October 1996) to the end (October 1999), the mean length of job stay was 2.4 years (SD = 0.8 years), with a median of 2.7 years. Figure 3 shows a Kaplan-Meier curve of the time until job turnover, measured in days. The turnover rate was 29.4% (95% CI = 23.5–35.3) over the three-year period—nearly 10% every year."

Beasley, B. W., Kern, D. E., & Kolodner, K. (2001). Job Turnover and Its Correlates among Residency Program Directors in Internal Medicine: A Three‐year Cohort Study. Academic Medicine, 76(11), 1127-1135.
Job turnover and its correlates among residency program directors in internal medicine: a three-year cohort study. - PubMed - NCBI

 

[gamerEMdoc]

It's highly, highly variable. At some places, PD job can be a junior administrator type job, where someone does that until they can move up into a director level job. At other places, you'll see people in that role for a decade or more. It's all over the place to be honest.