Academic Promotion for Clinicians: A Practical Guide to Academic Promotion and Tenure in Medical Schools

Book Title: Academic Promotion for Clinicians: A Practical Guide to Academic Promotion and Tenure in Medical Schools

Book Author: Anne Walling

Publication Information: Cham, Switzerland, Springer Nature, 2018, 174 pp., $74.99, paperback

Academic Promotion for Clinicians: A Practical Guide to Academic Promotion and Tenure in Medical Schools was written by Anne Walling, MB, ChB, to help others avoid the traumatic experience she endured as a busy clinician who was unprepared for the academic promotion process early in her career. Written from the perspective of 30 years of experience, much of this obtained as associate dean for faculty affairs at the University of Kansas, Wichita, Dr Walling shares valuable lessons learned and pearls of wisdom with the intent of not just making this process more transparent, but also of helping clinical faculty members to define and prioritize their several missions.

Recognizing that each institution has a unique culture and set of rules for academic promotion, Dr Walling details the challenges of academic promotion for clinical faculty, defines the various tracks available, generally outlines the requirements for promotion, and describes strategies for meeting them. Particularly helpful are her suggestions to develop an educational portfolio to demonstrate scholarship, as proof of scholarship is typically more difficult for clinicians who often lack the peer-reviewed grants, publications, and presentations at prestigious conferences that are traditionally standard. She offers other pearls as well, such as maintaining an ongoing file of teaching and service activities to make documentation of these activities less taxing later, and the importance of tying activities to the medical school’s mission to strengthen the file.

Dr Walling then moves on to depict the general process, and provides long-term strategies over the course of one’s career to ensure success. Within this blueprint, she discusses excellence in daily activities and leveraging professional activities into scholarship, and provides greater detail regarding archiving data that will provide persuasive support for the quantity, quality, and impact of one’s achievements. Finally, she highlights the need for self-reflection after each promotion process to assess one’s career course and whether or not correction is needed prior to the next promotion cycle.

This book is well written and full of detailed advice supported by experience. Anyone planning a career in academic medicine and many of those already in the middle of their academic career will find this book an invaluable resource. It will guide a proactive, thoughtful, and intentional planning of one’s academic career, and promote record-keeping disciplines and planning that will make documentation of a strong file a readily-tackled task rather than a stressful scramble. I wish Academic Promotion for Clinicians had been available earlier in my career. Rather than taking a reactive approach to academic culture, it would have driven me to mindfully plan and articulate my career goals, and to critically assess how my activities and committees work to further these goals. Even now, I found much of the material helpful as I approach my own merit review as a clinical professor, guiding me to demonstrate how my professional activities align with the institution’s expressed goals, and coaching me in presenting the strongest file possible. Dr Walling deserves praise for putting together such an excellent resource for academic clinicians.