professor only for researchers and soon to be retired clinicians?

[suckerfree]

I am curious about one day teaching medical students and functioning primarily in an academic setting. Are teaching positions in medical schools reserved primarily for people who are advanced in their clinical careers and want to wind down by teaching? Or do you have to be a prolific researcher in order to be listed as a professor? Does anyone go primarily into teaching with part time clinical involvement directly or shortly after finishing a pathology residency?

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[djmd]

I am curious about one day teaching medical students and functioning primarily in an academic setting. Are teaching positions in medical schools reserved primarily for people who are advanced in their clinical careers and want to wind down by teaching? Or do you have to be a prolific researcher in order to be listed as a professor? Does anyone go primarily into teaching with part time clinical involvement directly or shortly after finishing a pathology residency?

Some people are described all of academic pathology (even medicine) as three choice system. Clinical work, research, and teaching. Different programs have different expectations of their staff about this. Additionally some places may higher people with expectations of something other than a 33% split down the line. Nearly all imaginable splits are possible, except maybe 100% clinical, but mostly because why would you not be non academic... But I'm sure rare examples of that exist too...

 

[yaah]

In general you don't get paid to teach. Such is the irony of academic medicine. Once you are tenured you can devote your career to teaching I suppose, but you will likely have to contribute to the department somehow unless you can fund your own salary. I suppose if you run the pathology course for the med school that is one thing, but you still have to do more. There are pathologists here who are basically retired except for teaching.

 

[Potomania]

Usually there is a clinician-teaching track for those who want to be involved in primarily clinical activity and resident/med student education. This is what your typical academic pathologist does. For faculty with a strong science background and funding, there is the investigator track which is usually divided up around 70-90% research and the rest clinical activity. There is very little teaching of residents/med students in the investigator track (no time for it). Also, there is the option to switch tracks early in your career if you realize your current one is not for you. That is how tenure tracks are set up in the path dept. at my institution.

 

[DarksideAllstar]

I know this doesn't completely answer your question (or really have much relevance to it), but my school had an interesting set-up with regards to our second year pathology course. We do not have a residency program or even an academic clinical department (our hospitals in Nevada are all staffed by private path groups), so all of our teaching is done by private practicioners in the community who volunteer to teach us. Usually they'll teach an organ system or two each semester, so it doesn't cut significantly into their clinical responsibilities. I thought it was interesting model and really appeals to someone like myself who enjoys teaching but probably will end up practicing in the community. Anyhow, hi-jack over. Carry on.

 

[DarksideAllstar]

Dp

 

[yaah]

I know this doesn't completely answer your question (or really have much relevance to it), but my school had an interesting set-up with regards to our second year pathology course. We do not have a residency program or even an academic clinical department (our hospitals in Nevada are all staffed by private path groups), so all of our teaching is done by private practicioners in the community who volunteer to teach us. Usually they'll teach an organ system or two each semester, so it doesn't cut significantly into their clinical responsibilities. I thought it was interesting model and really appeals to someone like myself who enjoys teaching but probably will end up practicing in the community. Anyhow, hi-jack over. Carry on.

That's the key point: Volunteer to teach. Med schools love it when they can get people to volunteer to teach. It is an interesting model but is it practical? Med school education is supposed to depend on volunteerism and good hearted practitioners? This frees med school administration from actually having to pay instructors, interestingly, and they make "professors" out of people who have never even met med students who didn't work in their lab.