Lower Rates of Promotion of Generalists in Academic Medicine: A Follow-up to the National Faculty Survey

Background: Prior cross-sectional research has found that generalists have lower rates of academic advancement than specialists and basic science faculty.

Objective: Our objective was to examine generalists relative to other medical faculty in advancement and academic productivity.

Design: In 2012, we conducted a follow-up survey (n = 607) of 1214 participants in the 1995 National Faculty Survey cohort and supplemented survey responses with publicly available data.

Participants: Participants were randomly selected faculty from 24 US medical schools, oversampling for generalists, underrepresented minorities, and senior women.

Main measures: The primary outcomes were (1) promotion to full professor and (2) productivity, as indicated by mean number of peer-reviewed publications, and federal grant support in the prior 2 years. When comparing generalists with medical specialists, surgical specialists, and basic scientists on these outcomes, we adjusted for gender, race/ethnicity, effort distribution, parental and marital status, retention in academic career, and years in academia. When modeling promotion to full professor, we also adjusted for publications.

Key results: In the intervening 17 years, generalists were least likely to have become full professors (53%) compared with medical specialists (67%), surgeons (66%), and basic scientists (78%, p < 0.0001). Generalists had a lower number of publications (mean = 44) than other faculty [medical specialists (56), surgeons (57), and basic scientists (83), p < 0.0001]. In the prior 2 years, generalists were as likely to receive federal grant funding (26%) as medical (21%) and surgical specialists (21%), but less likely than basic scientists (51%, p < 0.0001). In multivariable analyses, generalists were less likely to be promoted to full professor; however, there were no differences in promotion between groups when including publications as a covariate.

Conclusions: Between 1995 and 2012, generalists were less likely to be promoted than other academic faculty; this difference in advancement appears to be related to their lower rate of publication.