Academic goals in surgery

Where are all the surgeons in clinical academia?

INTRODUCTION

High-quality research into surgical disease will benefit surgical patients. Whereas nearly one-fifth of National Health Service (NHS) England consultants are surgeons, less than 5% of the government's health research funding supports surgical research.

METHODS

Using an observational study, we identified surgeons in active research fellowships and on selection panels for the three largest pan-specialty medical funding bodies in the UK. We quantified the proportion of editorial board members that are surgeons, and the proportion of surgical research published over a 1-year period in the New England Journal of Medicine, The Lancet and the British Medical Journal.

RESULTS

Some 185/1,579 (12%) of research fellowships held by clinicians were awarded to surgeons, with relatively fewer surgeons holding senior fellowships compared with predoctoral fellowships. Across the three research funding bodies, 9/165 (5%) of the clinical panel members were surgeons, whereas for the three pan-specialty journals, 5/84 (6%) of the clinical editorial board members were surgeons. Of the 541 original articles published by the same three journals, only 45 (8%) were classified as surgical.

CONCLUSIONS

We show that surgeons were underrepresented across differing domains of clinical academia. The causes of this are likely multifactorial; there are fewer senior surgeons occupying decision-making positions, fewer role models in senior fellowship positions and surgical training may leave less time to engage in research. We propose further qualitative research within the surgical community, funding bodies and journals to understand the origins of the problem and begin to form evidence-based solutions.

Twelve-step Approach for Academic Development Planning in Academic Surgery: Climbing the Academic Uphill With Strong and Steady Steps

MINI-ABSTRACT

Surgical trainees and young academic surgeons should understand the specifics of the career they are pursing, and surgeon mentors should enhance their leadership roles and support the recruitment and retainment of academic surgeons through effective academic career support and strategic planning. Utilizing academic development planning can serve as an essential tool as both mentors & mentees navigate different career choices towards achieving a successful and sustainable academic career advancement.

Determinants of physician networks: an ethnographic study examining the processes that inform patterns of collaboration and referral decision-making among physicians

OBJECTIVE

Most scholarly attention to studying collaborative ties in physician networks has been devoted to quantitatively analysing large, complex datasets. While valuable, such studies can reduce the dynamic and contextual complexities of physician collaborations to numerical values. Qualitative research strategies can contribute to our understanding by addressing the gaps left by more quantitative approaches. This study seeks to contribute to the literature that applies network science approaches to the context of healthcare delivery. We use qualitative, observational and interview, methods to pursue an in-depth, micro-level approach to the deeply social and discursive processes that influence patterns of collaboration and referral decision-making in physician networks.

DESIGN

Qualitative methodologies that paired ethnographic field observations, semistructured interviews and document analysis were used. An inductive thematic analysis approach was used to analyse, identify and describe patterns in those data.

SETTING

This study took place in a high-volume cardiovascular department at a major academic medical centre (AMC) located in the Midwest region of the USA.

PARTICIPANTS

Purposive and snowballing sampling were used to recruit study participants for both the observational and face-to-face in-depth interview portions of the study. In total, 25 clinicians and 43 patients participated in this study.

RESULTS

Two primary thematic categories were identified: (1) circumstances for external engagement; and (2) clinical conditions for engagement. Thematic subcategories included community engagement, scientific engagement, reputational value, experiential information, professional identity, self-awareness of competence, multidisciplinary programmes and situational factors.

CONCLUSION

This study adds new contextual knowledge about the mechanisms that characterise referral decision-making processes and how these impact the meaning of physician relationships, organisation of healthcare delivery and the knowledge and beliefs that physicians have about their colleagues. This study highlights the nuances that influence how new collaborative networks are formed and maintained by detailing how relationships among physicians develop and evolve over time.

Graceful Self-Promotion: The impact of a short faculty development session

This article was migrated. The article was marked as recommended. Self-promotion can be challenging for physicians who are looking to advance their careers. While they want to make their successes in the workplace known, they are afraid of coming off as aggressive and turning off the people that they are trying to impress with their accomplishments. This dilemma led to the coining of the term "graceful self-promotion" (GSP), a method of making one's accomplishments and abilities visible with tact and humility. The Division of General Internal Medicine at the University of Florida undertook a faculty development session focusing on GSP skills. The session started with participants interacting with each other using Bingo cards which listed GSP strategies in order to facilitate discussion. This was followed by an interactive discussion on barriers to career advancement and strategies to practice GSP. Changes in physician knowledge regarding self-promotion techniques and attitudes towards its importance were assessed using statistical tests from responses to pre- and post-surveys. We measured a positive change in physician attitudes towards their ability to self-promote following the information session (p-value < 0.005). Perceptions about the importance of self-promotion activities improved as well (p-value < 0.005). Participants comments revealed greater understanding of need for networking, developing a spirit of generativity, and having a prepared Elevator Speech. In this era where pressure to generate clinical revenue allows for limited faculty development time even a short 1-hour session can create awareness about importance of GSP for academic advancement, strategies for participants to use, and awareness of barriers to GSP.