3.2 Academic Medicine
A physician’s contribution to medicine is more than just hands-on patient care; medical research led by physician-scientists have made lasting impacts in human advancements through discovery of new medicines, procedures, and mechanisms of immunity. Physicians continue to play a major role in scientific advancement. Currently of the 14,000 physician-scientists practicing in the U.S., roughly 8,000 have Research Project Grants from the NIH.11 In the past 25 years, over 33% of Nobel Laureates in Physiology or Medicine had an MD degree. Roughly 66% of NIH Institute directors, pharmaceutical chief scientific officers, and National Academy of Sciences have an MD Degree.12 The continuation of academic research throughout a medical career has yielded significant improvements on overall wellbeing and has led to scholarly achievement serving a major role in determining the academic advancement of physicians.
Scientific output also impacts personal career advancement opportunities. Using a measure of scientific output called the h-index, a variety of studies have shown that a higher h-index correlates with higher faculty rank.10,13-20 Looking amongst academic rank among 14 surveyed medical specialties, assistant professors scored a h-index score between 2-5, associate professors 6-10, and full professors 12-24.16 Amongst hand surgeons, though there are many factors that play into determining academic rank, the H-index was the most strongly correlated with academic rank.15 Other studies have also shown positive correlation with h-index and academic rank within the fields of ophthalmology, urology and radiology.14,17,18 As components of promotion become multifaceted and more diverse, the importance of h-index for rank advancement becomes seamlessly evident.