Do they stay or do they go? Residents who become faculty at their training institutions

Few data exist on the topic of internal hiring of trainees in academic medicine. This study examines nationally representative data to determine the frequency of faculty psychiatrists who are employed in the same department in which they completed their residency training.

Estimates of internal faculty hiring were obtained by reviewing a random sample of publically available psychiatry department websites in the United States.

Among the 26 departments reviewed, there was wide variation in the rates of psychiatrists who received training in the same department in which they were currently employed as faculty members, with a median of 45.5%, ranging from 0% to 71%.

Results suggest that departmental hiring of one's own graduates is common practice in academic psychiatry, and there is wide variation in this practice across psychiatry departments in the United States.