Master of Social Work Student, College of Health and Human Performance, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC, USA.
Office of Data Analysis and Strategy, Brody School of Medicine, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC, USA.
BMC Med Educ. 2020 May 29;20(1):174. doi: 10.1186/s12909-020-02085-6.
Increasing the number of primary care physicians is critical to overcoming the shortage of healthcare providers. Primary care physicians are increasingly called upon to address not only medical concerns but also behavioral health needs and social determinants of health which requires ongoing research and innovation. This paper evaluated scholarly productivity of faculty in tenure versus non-tenure tracks in primary care roles, defined as family medicine, internal medicine, internal medicine/pediatrics and pediatrics.
The study included physician faculty in the clinical departments of Brody School of Medicine serving between the 2014-2015 and 2018-2019 academic years. Department, track, and rank at the beginning of each academic year (e.g., 2014-2015) were correlated with having any publications in the following calendar year (e.g., 2015), as determined from a search of the Scopus database.
A total of 1620 observations and 542 unique faculty were included in the analysis. As of 2018-2019, 19% percent of primary care faculty were either tenured or on tenure track, as compared to 41% of faculty in other departments (p < 0.001). Primary care departments were also disproportionately staffed by junior faculty (60% as compared to 48% in other departments; p = 0.087). The proportion of faculty with any publications was significantly higher for faculty on the tenure track compared to those not on the tenure track (34% vs. 14%, p < 0.001).
Academic productivity was lower among non-tenure-track physician faculty, as measured by publication in peer-reviewed journals. This was exacerbated among faculty in primary care departments, who were also more likely to hold non-tenure-track appointments. The loss of tenure-track positions disproportionately impacts scholarly activity in primary care and may be limiting progress in care-oriented research. Findings suggest that providing non-tenure faculty the time and resources to be involved in research, in addition to their clinical work, as well as access to research collaborators and mentors can promote scholarly activity among this group.
增加初级保健医生的数量对于克服医疗保健提供者的短缺至关重要。初级保健医生不仅要处理医疗问题，还要处理行为健康需求和健康的社会决定因素，这需要不断的研究和创新。本文评估了在初级保健角色（定义为家庭医学、内科、内科/儿科和儿科）中，有终身职位和无终身职位的教员的学术成果。
该研究包括在布罗迪医学院临床系工作的医师教员，他们在 2014-2015 学年和 2018-2019 学年期间。每个学年开始时的系、轨道和级别（例如，2014-2015 年）与次年（例如，2015 年）的任何出版物相关，这是通过在 Scopus 数据库中搜索确定的。
共有 1620 次观察和 542 名教员纳入分析。截至 2018-2019 年，有 19%的初级保健教员拥有终身职位或终身职位，而其他部门的教员为 41%（p<0.001）。初级保健部门的初级教员也不成比例（与其他部门的 48%相比，为 60%；p=0.087）。在有任期的教员中，有任何出版物的教员比例明显高于没有任期的教员（34%比 14%，p<0.001）。
以在同行评议期刊上发表论文来衡量，非终身职位的医师教员的学术成果较低。在初级保健部门的教员中，这一比例更高，而且他们更有可能担任非终身职位。失去终身职位的职位不成比例地影响了初级保健的学术活动，可能限制了以护理为导向的研究的进展。研究结果表明，为非终身教职人员提供时间和资源来参与研究，除了他们的临床工作外，还为他们提供研究合作者和导师，可以促进这一群体的学术活动。
