Predictive factors for academic oncology career placement.

Abstract

9039 Background: Oncology is a discipline that has witnessed rapid expansion with new therapeutics and practices. Following this trend, training programs are increasingly valuing the cultivation of academic oncologists who will contribute to these developments through research. This study aims to explore characteristics of fellowship programs in the US promoting academic careers in oncology (initial academic position). Methods: A sampling of graduated fellow profiles available on the public websites of US hematology-oncology programs was conducted. To minimize over-representation from programs, even sampling of all available graduated fellows by year was done with a maximum of 10 per program. Characteristics including demographics, educational background, google scholar publication count during fellowship (divided into quartiles), program characteristics, and initial job (academics vs private practice) were collected. Academics was defined as working for an institution associated with a medical school. Logistic regression modeling was utilized to identify characteristics associated with higher odds of initial academic placement. Results: Between 2007 and 2023, 564 graduated fellows were identified, making up 39% of programs, with a majority favoring more recent years. Fellows graduating from NCI cancer center-associated programs and those of academic programs had significantly higher odds of obtaining an initial academic position (OR 1.60, 95% CI 1.08-2.38, p <0.05; OR 2.25, 95% CI 1.22-4.30, p <0.05). The strongest association was noted with scholarly productivity. Fellows of the highest quartile of productivity during their fellowship years (OR 9.70, 4.94-19.80, p <0.001) had the highest odds of obtaining an initial academic position. Characteristics without significant association included type of medical school (US vs IMG) and gender. Conclusions: Our data shows several characteristics associated with higher odds of initial academic placement, but most prominently, fellows of the highest quartile of research productivity were more than nine times likely than those of the lowest quartile of research productivity to obtain an academic position after fellowship. Our study is limited by its observational nature, but the magnitude and significance of association is worth investigating further and can shed light on the value of fellowship academic initiatives to foster research development. Select variables of a logistic regression model examining characteristics associated with obtaining an initial academic position after fellowship. Gender and Medical School status not included. [Table: see text]