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A Qualitative Study of the Influences on Clinical Academic Physicians' Postdoctoral Career Decision Making
Veronica F Ranieri1, Helen Barratt, Geraint Rees
1V.F. Ranieri is research associate, Academic Careers Office, School of Life and Medical Sciences, and Department of Applied Health Research, University College London, London, United Kingdom; ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0528-8640. H. Barratt is clinical senior research associate, Department of Applied Health Research, University College London, London, United Kingdom; ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1387-137X. G. Rees is dean, Faculty of Life Sciences, professor of cognitive neurology, and director, Academic Careers Office, School of Life and Medical Sciences, University College London, London, United Kingdom; ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9623-7007. N.J. Fulop is professor of health care organization and management, Department of Applied Health Research, University College London, London, United Kingdom; ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5306-6140.
Purpose:
To describe the influences on clinical academic physicians' postdoctoral career decision making.
Method:
Thirty-five doctoral trainee physicians from University College London took part in semistructured interviews in 2015 and 2016. Participants were asked open-ended questions about their career to date, their experiences undertaking a PhD, and their career plans post PhD. The interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed. Thematic analysis was used to generate, review, and define themes from the transcripts. Emerging differences and similarities in participants' reasons for pursuing a PhD were then grouped to produce typologies to explore how their experiences influenced their career decision making.
Results:
Participants described four key reasons for undertaking a PhD, which formed the basis of the four typologies identified. These reasons included the following: to pursue a clinical academic career; to complete an extensive period of research to understand whether a clinical academic career was the desired path forward; to improve clinical career prospects; and to take a break from clinical training.
Conclusions:
These findings highlight the need to target efforts at retaining clinical academic physicians according to their reasons for pursuing a PhD and their subsequent experiences with the process. Those responsible for overseeing clinical training must be well informed of the long-term benefits of training academically qualified physicians. In light of current political uncertainty, universities, hospitals, and external agencies alike must increase their efforts to inspire and assuage early-career clinical academic physicians' fears regarding their academic future.