Increasing Pediatricians' Scholarly Productivity on and off the Tenure Track

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Academic Medicine
• Research Productivity

Background:

• Physician faculty are increasingly appointed to nontenure-track positions with limited scholarly support.
• Scholarly activity is often more supported and rewarded for tenure-track faculty than for clinical-track faculty.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the impact of a centralized departmental research group on scholarly productivity.
• To assess the effect on both tenure-track and nontenure-track (clinical) physician faculty.

Main Methods:

• A pre-intervention cohort (July 2016) and post-intervention cohort (July 2018) of physician faculty were identified.
• Publication records were analyzed for the periods 2017-2018 (pre-intervention) and 2019-2020 (post-intervention).
• Seventy-five faculty were included, with ~2/3 on the clinical track.

Main Results:

• Publication rates increased from 25% (15/59) pre-intervention to 56% (33/59) post-intervention (P = .001).
• Multivariable analysis confirmed increased odds of publishing annually for both clinical-track and tenure-track faculty post-intervention.

Conclusions:

• A centralized research group effectively fostered scholarly activity among both clinical-track and tenure-track faculty.
• This model supports the academic mission by enhancing research productivity across diverse faculty appointments.