Promotion from Associate Professor to Full Professor Should Not Be Monolithic: A National Bibliometric Study by...

Area of Science:

• Academic Medicine
• Radiology
• Bibliometrics

Background:

• Promotion to full professor in radiology heavily relies on bibliometrics.
• Current benchmarks are not subspecialty-specific, potentially disadvantaging certain fields.
• Lack of tailored standards hinders fair evaluation and career planning.

Purpose of the Study:

• Establish subspecialty-specific bibliometric benchmarks for promotion readiness from associate professor to full professor in radiology.
• Quantify the promotion gap in bibliometrics across different radiology subspecialties.

Main Methods:

• Analyzed bibliometric data (publications, citations, h-index) for associate professors and full professors across nine radiology subspecialties at 136 US institutions.
• Defined
• promotion readiness
• using upper-tier associate professor percentiles (60th-90th) and
• entry thresholds
• using lower-tier full professor percentiles (10th-40th).
• Quantified the promotion gap by comparing percentile distributions and median bibliometric differences.

Main Results:

• Significant variation (up to 4.5-fold) in bibliometric benchmarks for promotion readiness across subspecialties.
• Promotion gaps varied, with associate professors in Pediatric Radiology having the smallest gap compared to Full Professors, and Musculoskeletal Radiology having the largest.
• Achieving median full professor bibliometric levels requires associate professors to publish significantly more papers annually, including first/last-authored publications.

Conclusions:

• Bibliometric profiles and promotion gaps exhibit substantial subspecialty variation within academic radiology.
• Subspecialty-specific benchmarks are essential for informed promotion committee decisions.
• These benchmarks can guide faculty career planning and ensure equitable evaluation.