Promotion Committees and Attending Meetings Improve Promotion Rates for Early Career Faculty

Academic promotion is an important goal in an academic physician's career trajectory. Understanding the factors that influence success in academic promotion is important in providing appropriate guidance and resources.

The Council of Academic Family Medicine Educational Research Alliance (CERA) conducted a large omnibus survey of family medicine department chairs. Participants were asked about recent promotion rates within their department, as well as about whether their department had a promotion committee, whether faculty regularly met with the chair regarding preparation for promotion, whether faculty had been assigned mentors, and whether faculty attended national academic meetings.

The response rate was 54%. Most chairs were male (66.3%), White (77.9%), and aged 50 to 59 (41.3%) or 60 to 69 (42.3%) years. Attendance at professional meetings was associated with a higher rate of assistant-to-associate professor promotions. Departments with a committee to help faculty with promotions had higher rates of promotion for both assistant-to-associate and associate-to-full professor levels than departments without a committee. Promotion was not associated with assigned mentorship, support from the chair, departmental or institutional sponsorship of faculty development regarding promotion, or annual assessments of progress toward promotion.

Attendance at professional meetings and the presence of a departmental promotions committee may be helpful factors in achieving academic promotion. An assigned mentor was not found to be a helpful factor.