The scope of an "academic" career

[deschutes]

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Let me say up front that I am not interested in a discussion about salary. That has been done ad nauseum in the past, and those who wish to discuss salary should feel free to do a search or start up their own thread.

As a visitor to the US, I keep being told that in many (the vast majority? of) academic institutions in the US, promotion is based on publishing.

I'm interested in the basics.

Who decides on your promotion? And really, "how much is enough?"? Does research and publishing for promotion necessarily involve applying for grants?
If teaching weighs in at all, does the sort of teaching matter? Med students? Residents? Or CME courses, for the money they bring in?

Part of my confusion might arise from the fact that I'm currently rotating through a large private practice group which has residents year-round and there are individuals who publish regularly. To me this blurs the distinction between "academics" and "community practice" quite considerably.

 

[LADoc00]

I want to say I have never sat in the lap of path chairman and decided on academic promotions. I have contributed stuff to them in the form of letters, recommendations etc...

I *believe* the way it is done in true academic institutions is that chairmen of departments "recommend" to the full academic senate a promotion from asst to assoc. and from assoc to full professor. The academic senate then votes yes or no. One huge hitch is that medical professionals get promoted WAY faster than everyone else and are seen by humanities, engineering, hard wet and dry sciences as well as law and business as overunning the academic senate at most top tier institutions. Thus the entry of the "clinical track" position, which really is meaningless other than providing a small bump up in pay.

In conclusion, from friends I have who are tenured in humanities and others who are in medicine:
~teaching plays a limited roll, even widly popular teachers can lay around in limbo as an associate until retirement
~my suspicion is many are promoted internally to professor because they receive job offers as full professor elsewhere, hence I think promotion is less a track than it is a retention tool. If professor A is so-so but has multiple offers from solid places for full professor, he would likely be in better shape than professor B, who is marginally better but hasnt looked elsewhere. This is how MANY people get promoted in the professional sphere so it is not aberrant.

Saying promotion is publishing based is a HUGE HUGE oversimplification. Yes you need to publish, but it is not from my assessment a numbers game. Personality weighs into this for a massive component. Stanford is going to be reluctant to promote an ass monkey to full professor if he cant be trusted to mentor grad students and post docs.

This isnt that mysterious of a process really, faculty are commodities. They can be wieghed, judged and ranked fairly easily by CFOs within med centers with fairly limited input.

My assessment of the situation is this: if you are sitting around typing on this site wondering how to get ahead in academics, it likely isnt for you or should I say it would be far far too big of a gamble for you to embark on now. if this is merely out of curiosity, that is another thing.

I cant really figure what exactly you are thinking tho.

Part of my confusion might arise from the fact that I'm currently rotating through a large private practice group which has residents year-round and there are individuals who publish regularly

I have no idea why that "confuses" you. Likely the people publish because they want to publish, they get off on it, I doubt there is some angle they have of one day being promoted to an endowed professorship at Hopkins.

 

[deschutes]

Well, the purported "confusion" is similar to the MGH vs. BWH theme of the other thread - i.e. the difference is less than people like to make things out to be.

If a large private practice group takes in residents, mentors them and has staff that are keen on publishing, then the gap between academics and private practice is narrower than is perceived (or made out to be).

I ask questions. Not everyone is earnestly looking to "get ahead" all the time, you hardened cynic 😉

 

[LADoc00]

the differences can be huge as far as how closely you want to examine the issue. I cant comment on what the differences between MGH and BWH are now, but in the late 90s, they were insanely huge. One was filled with IMGs and the other with MDPhDs. That is historical fact not open to debate.

Aside from that, there indeed are private-academic hybrids just like there lobsters that are half green and half orange:

You dont eat 2 toned lobsters everyday or even every lifetime...just like most dont go into these hybrid practices.

 

[docbiohazard]

If a large private practice group takes in residents, mentors them and has staff that are keen on publishing, then the gap between academics and private practice is narrower than is perceived (or made out to be).

Out of curiosity, what sorts of things are they publishing? Case reports? Case series? I'm assuming they're not in private practice doing a lot of wet bench research but I'm curious.

I've wondered about the posibilities of doing research in the private practice world myself.

BH

 

[deschutes]

From the GI folks at least, microsatellite instability/aberrant methylation type topics come to mind. So not case reports 🙂

As far as I can tell, I think IHC, molecular/cytogenetics and flow are currently the favourite clinico-pathologic research tools.

 

[Matte Kudesai]

Cytogenetics, IMO, is a waste of time and money.

Cytogenetic info can be extremely important in prognostic assessment though don't you think?

 

[Matte Kudesai]

IHC or molecular based papers seem to be in vogue these days. Cytogenetics is worthless in the majority of cases. I have yet to encounter a case where cytogenetics has made a significant impact on the final diagnosis on a case. Cytogenetics, IMO, is a waste of time and money.

Making TMA's and staining them brown is an easy way to publish. Most of these studies will be relegated to crappy low impact journals. The fact that the best pathology journal has an impact factor of 6 shows that our field needs to publish about research that is more meaningful than our little USCAP, ASCP, and CAP world.

 

[LADoc00]

IHC or molecular based papers seem to be in vogue these days. Cytogenetics is worthless in the majority of cases. I have yet to encounter a case where cytogenetics has made a significant impact on the final diagnosis on a case. Cytogenetics, IMO, is a waste of time and money.

Cytogenetics includes FISH dude. That is VERY important in diagnostics. Go hit the books if you dont know why....

are you referring to classical karyotyping?

 

[b&ierstiefel]

Cytogenetics includes FISH dude. That is VERY important in diagnostics. Go hit the books if you dont know why....

are you referring to classical karyotyping?

Yeah...classical karyotyping was what I was referring to...

I realized the folly of my earlier statement right after I typed it in (because yes, FISH is extremely important) and actually tried to change it but SDN kept stalling when I tried to log on again. So I went to bed

 

[l&usibari]

Would someone mind addressing academic tracks? I occasionally hear "that attending is on the research track", or "that attending is on the clinical track" and am a little vague on what the means. Do the salaries vary considerably?

 

[deschutes]

As far as I can tell, the terms "research track" and "clinical track" came about, because academic faculty can do two things with their time: research, and clinical service. How their work time is split up e.g. 80/20, 50/50, 100/0 etc determines which "track" they are in.

I think "clinical assistant/associate/ professors" just do all service work.

I believe salary source also comes into play. The medical school and tuition can only pay a tiny fraction of a faculty member's salary, so the rest of it comes from various sources, perhaps grants for research track people and clinical service for clinical track people.