The Case Against Tenure in Medical Schools

Abstract

TENURE in medical schools is a relatively new phenomenon. It developed slowly, primarily because most medical schools consisted of parttime faculty until World War II. These part-time faculty were primarily clinicians who derived most of their income from the practice of medicine and were not dependent on the university for their economic survival. Although a number of medical schools had small basic science departments, even in them, tenure was not a subject of contention. Tenure developed in medical schools primarily as the medical schools became a progressively integral part of the university. It developed a much stronger base in public medical schools than in private medical schools, but was accepted even by the private schools, primarily to place them in a competitive position in the recruitment and retention of faculty and to provide employment security. The purposes of tenure are well known. It exists to protect faculty from adverse outside