A. Lam1, M. Heslin1, C. D. Tzeng2, H. Chen1 1University Of Alabama At Birmingham,Surgery,Birmingham, ALABAMA, USA 2University Of Kentucky,Surgery,Lexington, KENTUCKY, USA
Introduction:
In the dynamic environment of academia, tenure has recently come under investigation. Nationally, more academic faculty members are now appointed to non-tenure track positions than tenure-track positions. However, studies investigating the impact of promotion and tenure on surgeon productivity are lacking. The aim of this study is to understand the relationship of promotion and tenure to surgeon productivity.
Methods:
We reviewed data for the 114 faculty members in the Department of Surgery at our institution. Two metrics were used to assess surgeon productivity: relative value units (RVUs) billed per year and publications per year from the period 2010-2016. Publication number was measured by Pubmed search, and affiliations were used to verify authorship. We analyzed two groups: tenure track (TT) surgeons and non-tenure (NT) track surgeons and compared productivity within these groups by faculty rank: Assistant (ASST), Associate (ASSOC), and Full (FULL) Professor. Kruskal-Wallis test was used to assess significance, and Mann-Whitney U tests were used to ascertain relationships between groups.
Results:
As TT faculty were promoted, they had more research production, with publication rates highest among TT FULL. TT faculty publishing rates increased from ASST to ASSOC (1 vs 2, p=0.006) and from ASSOC to FULL (2 vs 4, p<0.001). There were no differences in the low publication rates between NT ranks. Clinical production (RVUs) was highest among TT ASSOC and NT FULL. TT faculty increased productivity between ASST and ASSOC (7,023 vs 8,384, p=0.001) and decreased between ASSOC and FULL (8,384 vs 6,877, p<0.001). Among NT faculty, RVUs were stagnant between ASST and ASSOC levels (4877 vs 6313, p=0.3121) and increased between ASSOC and FULL levels (6,313 vs 8,975, p<0.001). Comparing TT to NT, TT faculty published more than their NT counterparts (p<0.001 for all groups). TT ASST and TT ASSOC produced more RVU than NT counterparts (p=0.006 and p<0.001 respectively), while NT FULL outproduced TT FULL (p=0.003).
Conclusion:
Tenure and non-tenure pathways appear to appropriately incentivize surgical faculty over the course of their advancement. TT FULL have the highest research production and NT FULL have the highest clinical production. Interestingly, TT faculty paradoxically has more clinical production at the ASST and ASSOC levels than their NT counterparts, and only NT FULL had greater clinical production than their TT parallels.
