Fellowship training and career outcomes for primary care physician-faculty

Purpose. To examine associations between fellowship training and career out comes among primary care physician-faculty. Method. A total of 821 full-time primary care physician-faculty from 24 rep resentative U.S. medical schools were surveyed. using a self-administered q uestionnaire. Primary outcomes were recent grant submissions and funding, c areer refereed publications, rank, and salary. Findings were adjusted for d emographic and professional characteristics. Results. Of the 500 respondents, 234 of the physician-faculty had completed a fellowship and 266 had not. Fellowship-trained physician-faculty were mo re than four times as likely to have submitted a grant proposal and to have had a grant funded (both p < 0.0001) than were physician-faculty without f ellowship training. They were also more likely to have had any refereed pub lications (OR 3.8, p < 0.0001) and to have achieved senior academic rank (O R = 1.9, p = 0.02). Among those with fellowship experience, the amount of r esearch training was important. Those with at least one year of research ex perience in their fellowship program had. more grant proposal submissions ( OR = 1.9, p = 0.02), more grants funded (OR = 2.9, p = 0.0003), more public ations (OR = 2.4, p = 0.02), and higher academic ranks (OR 2.3, p = 0.03) t han did those with less research training. Salaries were similar in every c omparison. Conclusion. Fellowship-trained primary care physician-faculty were more pro ductive researchers and were more likely to have achieved senior academic r ank than were their non-fellowship-trained peers. Even among physician-facu lty with fellowship experience, more research training was associated with higher productivity and rank. Salaries were not affected by training experi ence.