Avoiding the postdoctoral glut: an alternative route to a career in academia

Dramatic increases in the number of PhDs granted during the last several decades have not been balanced by comparable increases in the number of academic positions, producing a glut of postdoctoral fellows. One major reason for the burgeoning numbers of postdoctoral fellows is a widespread perception that there is no alternative route to a career in academia other than through gaining expertise in bench research. This paper suggests that considerable numbers of postdoctoral fellows who are interested in securing a tenure-track position at a major medical or research university should consider directing their postgraduate training toward teaching. Teaching at universities is becoming a specialized field partly because researchers are unable to keep up with the explosion of information, new instructional theories, methodologies, and technology. Thus, some individuals who are currently in a postdoctoral holding pattern could use those years to increase their teaching competence. Such an "educational" postdoctoral position may offer a faster route to a career in academia as universities continue to recognize the need for teaching specialists.