The double helix of activity and scholarship: building a medical education career with limited resources

Abstract

Context Creating respected scholarship from educational and clinical activities is challenging for medical school faculty members. In the USA and Europe, criteria for ‘scholarship’ has broadened and enriched. However, in developing countries, promotion systems generally continue to emphasise traditional laboratory or clinical research. Objective This paper sets forth a broad conception of scholarship and provides international distribution venues that reinforce the importance of scholarly activity corresponding to clinical and educational work. Methods Information sources about non‐traditional scholarship included 50 medical school faculty from 20 economically developing nations plus senior faculty from throughout the USA. Resources for distribution venues were drawn from a citation index search, a literature search and Google. Results The authors provide resources for faculty advancement, including examples of non‐traditional scholarship that meet rigorous criteria, and a comprehensive list of venues for the dissemination of educational materials and studies. They give a relative value process for academic work to assist faculty in developing educational scholarship. Finally, they propose a double helix model for academic advancement, consisting of 2 congruent helices with the same axis, 1 representing educational, service or clinical activity and the other scholarly achievement. Conclusions These materials and the double helix model will support faculty and promotion committees, especially those from schools that have not yet broadened their view of scholarship, to envisage a realistic starting point and see how educational and clinical activities can generate internationally recognised, high‐quality scholarship.

Effect of Resident Evaluations of Obstetrics and Gynecology Faculty on Promotion

“…12,13 Retaining excellent teachers in academic medicine is as vital as understanding what motivates faculty to remain in academic practice. 3,14 Most institutions have a clinical track as well as the more traditional tenure and research tracks, and our findings show that teaching plays an important role in promotion for this group of obstetrics-gynecology faculty.…”

Scholarship Opportunities for Trainees and Clinician Educators: Learning Outcomes from a Case Report Writing Workshop

“…However, studies suggest that, compared to clinician-scientists, clinician-educators' academic rank is lower, promotion takes longer to achieve, and they are more likely to be in a nontenured track position 1 . The Society of General Internal Medicine and others provide detailed examples to document scholarship for promotion of clinician-educators 3,[27][28][29][30] . Proposed documentation of productivity includes areas relevant to teaching, mentoring and supervision, educational and administrative service, and scholarship of dissemination 31 .…”

“…Proposed documentation of productivity includes areas relevant to teaching, mentoring and supervision, educational and administrative service, and scholarship of dissemination 31 . Some examples include participating in clinical research, publishing in books and peer-reviewed journals, developing curriculum and presenting at academic meetings [27][28][29][30] . Interestingly, not all participants agree that presenting at a meeting or publishing in a medical journal would help one's career.…”

Confronting the social mandate for nursing scholarship – One school of nursing’s journey.

“…This includes decisions about inclusivity (all faculty responsible and engaged in scholarship) and exclusivity (targeted development of a few scholars within the faculty) (Green et al, 2007). Tensions between the mandates of teaching and research and the meaning of a broad and inclusive view of scholarship in nursing, and related disciplines with practice and teaching accountabilities, must be fully explored and debated (Hofmeyer et al, 2007;Morahan & Fleetwood, 2008;Simpson et al, 2007;Swartz, 2014). Further, defining and valuing the scholarship of teaching and practice will remain central to the development of the discipline, and therefore, it is critical that these are explicitly defined in promotion, tenure and accreditation processes (Acorn & Osborne, 2013;Allen & Field, 2005;Swartz).…”