Promotion Committees and Attending Meetings Improve Promotion Rates for Early Career Faculty

Abstract

Introduction: Academic promotion is an important goal in an academic physician’s career trajectory. Understanding the factors that influence success in academic promotion is important in providing appropriate guidance and resources. Methods: The Council of Academic Family Medicine Educational Research Alliance (CERA) conducted a large omnibus survey of family medicine department chairs. Participants were asked about recent promotion rates within their department, as well as about whether their department had a promotion committee, whether faculty regularly met with the chair regarding preparation for promotion, whether faculty had been assigned mentors, and whether faculty attended national academic meetings. Results: The response rate was 54%. Most chairs were male (66.3%), White (77.9%), and aged 50 to 59 (41.3%) or 60 to 69 (42.3%) years. Attendance at professional meetings was associated with a higher rate of assistant-to-associate professor promotions. Departments with a committee to help faculty with promotions had higher rates of promotion for both assistant-to-associate and associate-to-full professor levels than departments without a committee. Promotion was not associated with assigned mentorship, support from the chair, departmental or institutional sponsorship of faculty development regarding promotion, or annual assessments of progress toward promotion. Conclusions: Attendance at professional meetings and the presence of a departmental promotions committee may be helpful factors in achieving academic promotion. An assigned mentor was not found to be a helpful factor.