Abstract
PurposeTo describe the influences on clinical academic physicians’ postdoctoral career decision making.MethodThirty-five doctoral trainee physicians from University College London took part in semistructured interviews in 2015 and 2016. Participants were asked open-ended questions about their career to date, their experiences undertaking a PhD, and their career plans post PhD. The interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed. Thematic analysis was used to generate, review, and define themes from the transcripts. Emerging differences and similarities in participants’ reasons for pursuing a PhD were then grouped to produce typologies to explore how their experiences influenced their career decision making.ResultsParticipants described four key reasons for undertaking a PhD, which formed the basis of the four typologies identified. These reasons included the following: to pursue a clinical academic career; to complete an extensive period of research to understand whether a clinical academic career was the desired path forward; to improve clinical career prospects; and to take a break from clinical training.ConclusionsThese findings highlight the need to target efforts at retaining clinical academic physicians according to their reasons for pursuing a PhD and their subsequent experiences with the process. Those responsible for overseeing clinical training must be well informed of the long-term benefits of training academically qualified physicians. In light of current political uncertainty, universities, hospitals, and external agencies alike must increase their efforts to inspire and assuage early-career clinical academic physicians’ fears regarding their academic future.
Highlights
Participants described four key reasons for undertaking a PhD, which formed the basis of the four typologies identified. These reasons included the following: to pursue a clinical academic career; to complete an extensive period of research to understand whether a clinical academic career was the desired path forward; to improve clinical career prospects; and to take a break from clinical training
These findings highlight the need to target efforts at retaining clinical academic physicians according to their reasons for pursuing a PhD and their subsequent experiences with the process
This shortage is attributed, in part, to academia’s inability to retain this group after they have completed their PhD training.[4]. These researchers are key to the future of medicine as innovations and advances in treatment depend on a continuous supply of clinical academic physicians
Summary
Thirty-five doctoral trainee physicians from University College London took part in semistructured interviews in 2015 and 2016. Participants were asked open-ended questions about their career to date, their experiences undertaking a PhD, and their career plans post PhD. Thematic analysis was used to generate, review, and define themes from the transcripts. Emerging differences and similarities in participants’ reasons for pursuing a PhD were grouped to produce typologies to explore how their experiences influenced their career decision making. We interviewed early-career clinical academic physician trainees and analyzed the data using a qualitative methodology to extract rich and meaningful narratives of the influences experienced by this group.[9] This study was approved by the University College London (UCL) research ethics committee
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