Integrating clinician-educators into academic medical centers: Challenges and potential solutions

During the last decade academic medical centers (AMCs) have hired large num bers of clinician-educators to teach and provide clinical care. However, th ese clinician-educators often do not advance in academic rank, since excell ence in clinical care and teaching alone is not adequate justification for advancement. The authors articulate the problems with the present system of recognition for clinician-educators-i.e., the requirement for regional and national reputation, the lack of reliable measures of clinical and teachin g excellence, and the lack of training opportunities for young clinic lan - educators. They call for solutions, including fundamental changes in promo tion criteria (e.g., focus criteria for promotion on clinician-educators' a ccomplishments within their institutions) and the development of valid and feasible methods to measure outcomes of teaching programs. Further, they re commend the development of a new faculty position, a "clinician-educator re searcher," to foster the scholarship of discovery in medical education and clinical practice. Investments in clinician-educator researchers will ultim ately help AMCs to achieve their threefold mission-excellence in patient ca re, teaching, and research.