Subsequent Career Paths Research Articles

Obtaining a PhD in Portugal. Determinants of Success and Subsequent Career Paths

Background Over the past three decades, Portugal has invested significantly in doctoral training. However, there is a lack of up-to-date information on the success of scholarship holders in obtaining the degree or on their subsequent career paths. Methods This study analysed four cohorts of scholarship holders funded by the Foundation for Science and Technology between 1995 and 2012. The professional situation at different points in time after the Ph.D. (5, 10, 15 and 20 years) was studied. Results The success rate for obtaining the degree was 88%, which is comparable to other European countries for doctorates completed with funding over a period of 3-4 years. The average time to obtain the degree was 5.06 years. The time to degree was influenced by the scientific field, the nationality of the scholarship holder, and the location of the institution awarding the degree (in Portugal or abroad). The gender or age range of the scholarship recipients did not influence the time required for graduation. The analysis of the career and sector of activity of these graduates at different points in time after obtaining the Ph.D. revealed that approximately 60% percent of the graduates were engaged in R&D activities at some point in their career paths, but this percentage diminished from the oldest to the most recent cohorts, suggesting difficulties in retaining recent graduates in academia and in the private sector. In 2020, 63% of the graduates were engaged in R&D activities, and almost half were employed in higher education as teachers, researchers, or scholarship holders. Conclusions This study confirmed the challenges faced by doctoral graduates in integrating into non-academic job markets. On the other hand, it has demonstrated an efficient use of public funds, with high success rates and a time to degree that is within the average of other European countries.

Integrating academic medical education into vocational general practitioner training: how do these combined training posts impact on subsequent career paths?

ABSTRACT Background In the UK, to encourage academic careers, extended education posts (EEPs) exist, where standard three-year, general practice vocational training is extended, offering trainees dedicated time to spend in another specialty such as medical education (Med Ed). Little is known about whether this impacts positively on their subsequent careers. Aims To explore general practitioners’ (GPs’) experiences and career trajectories after undertaking Med Ed EEPs. Method Twenty-eight GPs who completed a Med Ed EEP between 2013 and 2021 were invited to participate. Semi-structured interviews were held virtually. Transcripts were coded with NVivo software and underwent thematic analysis using Braun and Clarke’s six-phase framework to ensure a reiterative process of internal validation. Results Eight GPs took part. All were working as NHS GPs, alongside other roles. Four themes emerged: ‘growing as an academic educator’, ‘research can be interesting’, ‘the academic environment’ and ‘juggling multiple roles is stressful’. Most were still teaching, involved in research and had undertaken formal Med Ed training. Role models and immersion in academic teams were influential. Significant tensions and stresses were experienced when balancing multiple roles. The absence of ongoing academic training tracks contributed to this. Conclusion EEPs impact positively on academic career development and the acquisition of appropriate skills. However, managing multiple roles is challenging and stressful. Short-term university contracts, difficulties obtaining flexible working and resultant lack of partnership or salaried clinical work highlight an urgent need to explore fixed academic training pathways after vocational training, if sustainable recruitment into primary care academia is to be achieved.

What are the chances? Clinician scientist` career pathways in Germany

BackgroundGermany faces a lack of clinician scientists. This problem is widely acknowledged, not just in Germany, as clinician scientists are crucial for medical translation and innovation: trained in medical practice and research they are capable of translating scientific problems into clinical application and vice versa, clinical problems into research. The implementation of nationwide clinician scientist programs (CSPs) in Germany is supposed to solve the lack of trained clinician scientists and, as consequence, to improve the translational relationship between biomedical research and clinical practice. Against the backdrop of an increasing number of CSPs, our study provides early insights into their effectiveness with a focus on what it means to become a clinician scientist and to establish a subsequent career path as a clinician scientist in Germany.MethodsDuring a research project that was conducted from 2020 to 2023 and funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, we studied thirteen CSPs. We developed a qualitative questionnaire and interviewed 36 clinician scientists in training, their program supervisors, as well as policy stakeholders. The goal of the interviews was to identify the key obstacles in establishing a career path for clinician scientists in Germany.ResultsWe found three types of challenges for establishing and ensuring long term career paths for clinician scientists: First, local working conditions need to allow for clinician scientists to create and perform tasks that combine research, teaching, patient care and translation synergistically. Protection from the urgency of patient care and from metrics-based performance measures both in the clinic and in research seem key here. Second, a stable career path requires new target positions besides clinic management and senior residency. Third, there is a need for cultural change within university medicine that recognizes and rewards new translation-focused practices.ConclusionWe find that CSPs improve working conditions for the duration of the program and provide protected time for doing research. After the programs, however, the career paths remain unstable, mainly due to a lack of target positions for clinician scientists. CSPs support the initial development of the clinician scientist’ role, but not in a sustainable way, because the separation of research and patient care is stabilized on an institutional and systemic level. The tasks clinician scientists perform in research remain separate from patient care and teaching, thus, limiting their translational potential. In order to remain a clinician scientist within this differentiated system of university medicine, clinician scientists have to do a significant amount of extra work.

A New History of Social Work: Values and Practice in the Struggle for Social Justice, John H. Pierson

What can a historical perspective teach us? Pierson argues that taking a ‘social justice’ perspective to history uncovers social work’s past prejudices and examines its relationship to a changing society. The risk is to assume that current attitudes are the ideal and to apply them to the past without properly considering the historical context but Pierson takes a more judicious approach—he’s alive to the prejudices and oppressions of the past whilst acknowledging that our progress to a more socially equitable society still has a long way to go. It’s worth noting that Pierson’s is a history of British social work—there is nothing inevitable about the way the profession has developed in the UK and some comparative case studies from other countries might have been illuminating. Pierson argues that his approach focuses on ‘street level engagement’ between professionals and service users, highlighting common themes between social work in the past and today. He begins in the post-Napoleonic period and the relatively generous provisions of the Poor Law before the 1834 Amendment. Welfare, he argues, was embedded in British society long before the post-1945 welfare state. The early chapters are the most engaging: Pierson uses historical records and case studies to bring these sections alive. Highlights for me were a balanced discussion of the Charity Organisation Society, showing how its often excellent practical and theoretical work was undermined by a rigidly individualistic philosophy of personal responsibility and a fascinating chapter on the womens’ settlement movement from which grew the first formal training courses (because, unlike with mens’ settlements, there were no subsequent career paths for the women to follow). The pioneering course at Liverpool University, established in 1905, faced dilemmas that many educators today will find familiar as—in a later chapter—did the expansion of social work courses at the London School of Economics in the 1950s. Should they be generic? Should they be dominated by a psychiatric approach? There is much to consider and reflect on in these earlier chapters as Pierson discusses the rise of psychoanalytic casework, the ‘mental hygiene’ movement, debates over exactly what sort of ‘guidance’ Child Guidance Clinics ought to offer.

Sustained Impact of a Postgraduate Residency Training Program on Nurse Practitioners' Careers.

In 2007, the first formal postgraduate nurse practitioner (NP) residency program was launched at Community Health Center, Inc., a large Federally Qualified Health Center in Connecticut, and focused on primary care and community health. There are numerous post-graduate nurse practitioner training programs across the nation, and many more are under development. Although the literature describes the impact of postgraduate residency training programs on new NPs' early practice transition, to date, no studies have examined the long-term impact of postgraduate NP training programs on alumni's career choices, practice, and satisfaction. This study sought to understand the impact over time of Community Health Center Inc.'s postgraduate NP residency program on the subsequent career paths of alumni who completed the program between 2008 and 2019. Additionally, it explored alumni's current reflections on the impact of their postgraduate residency training on their transition to the post-residency year and beyond, as well as their professional development and career choices. Moreover, it sought to identify any previously undocumented elements of impact for further exploration in subsequent studies. This was a retrospective cohort study that used an electronic survey and interviews. All 90 of the alumni who had completed Community Health Center Inc.'s residency between 2008 and 2019 were invited to participate. The survey's response rate was 72%. Most (74%) of the participating alumni indicated they were still practicing as primary care providers. Of these, 57% were practicing at FQHCs. Nine subthemes were identified from the interviews, with an overarching theme that the program was foundational to a successful career in community-based primary care and that the impact of the program continues to evolve. Community Health Center Inc.'s postgraduate NP residency program had a long-standing impact on alumni's commitment to continuing in primary care practice, as well as their engagement in leadership activities to ensure quality care.

Looking Back To Venture Forward: Exploring Idea and Identity Work in Public Failure Narratives

Business failure often leads entrepreneurs to craft public narratives. Taking a performative storytelling perspective of such narratives, we investigate how entrepreneurs jointly reevaluate their ideas and identities, and how this relates to their subsequent career paths. We theorize that the stories entrepreneurs tell shape who they become, changing not only how others see them but also how they see themselves. This broadens theoretical understanding of how failed entrepreneurs navigate their transition to a diverse array of subsequent careers, including different forms of serial entrepreneurship (same industry; new industry) and exit (startup employee; established business employee; exit with reentry).

Does working at a start-up pay off?

Using representative linked employer-employee data for Germany, this paper analyzes short- and long-run differences in labor market performance of workers joining start-ups instead of incumbent firms. Applying entropy balancing and following individuals over ten years, we find huge and long-lasting drawbacks from entering a start-up in terms of wages, yearly income, and (un)employment. These disadvantages hold for all groups of workers and types of start-ups analyzed. Although our analysis of different subsequent career paths highlights important heterogeneities, it does not reveal any strategy through which workers joining start-ups can catch up with the income of similar workers entering incumbent firms.

Career Paths of Pathology Informatics Fellowship Alumni

Background: The alumni of today’s Pathology Informatics and Clinical Informatics fellowships fill diverse roles in academia, large health systems, and industry. The evolving training tracks and curriculum of Pathology Informatics fellowships have been well documented. However, less attention has been given to the posttraining experiences of graduates from informatics training programs. Here, we examine the career paths of subspecialty fellowship-trained pathology informaticians. Methods: Alumni from four Pathology Informatics fellowship training programs were contacted for their voluntary participation in the study. We analyzed various components of training, and the subsequent career paths of Pathology Informatics fellowship alumni using data extracted from alumni provided curriculum vitae. Results: Twenty-three out of twenty-seven alumni contacted contributed to the study. A majority had completed undergraduate study in science, technology, engineering, and math fields and combined track training in anatomic and clinical pathology. Approximately 30% (7/23) completed residency in a program with an in-house Pathology Informatics fellowship. Most completed additional fellowships (15/23) and many also completed advanced degrees (10/23). Common primary posttraining appointments included chief medical informatics officer (3/23), director of Pathology Informatics (10/23), informatics program director (2/23), and various roles in industry (3/23). Many alumni also provide clinical care in addition to their informatics roles (14/23). Pathology Informatics alumni serve on a variety of institutional committees, participate in national informatics organizations, contribute widely to scientific literature, and more than half (13/23) have obtained subspecialty certification in Clinical Informatics to date. Conclusions: Our analysis highlights several interesting phenomena related to the training and career trajectory of Pathology Informatics fellowship alumni. We note the long training track alumni complete in preparation for their careers. We believe flexible training pathways combining informatics and clinical training may help to alleviate the burden. We highlight the importance of in-house Pathology Informatics fellowships in promoting interest in informatics among residents. We also observe the many important leadership roles in academia, large community health systems, and industry available to early career alumni and believe this reflects a strong market for formally trained informaticians. We hope this analysis will be useful as we continue to develop the informatics fellowships to meet the future needs of our trainees and discipline.

The Generation Gap: A Cohort Analysis of Earnings Levels, Dispersion and Initial Labor Market Conditions in Italy, 1974-2014

We discuss entry wages, career patterns and inequality developments of successive cohorts who have entered the Italian labour market between 1974 and 2014. We find that entry wages started to decline around the mid-1990s; the drop continued at least until the onset of the global financial crisis, seemingly slowing down thereafter. This pattern cannot be explained by changes in observable job characteristics. Falling entry wages have not been accompanied by faster subsequent career paths; rather, subsequent career paths have increasingly featured rising earnings dispersion due to both increased workers heterogeneity and greater temporary earnings instability. We relate such developments to the changes in labour market institutions that took place between the early 1990s and the mid-2000s.

“No Ku Klux Klan for Kern”

The Ku Klux Klan saw a rapid rise in Kern County, California, in 1921 but disintegrated in 1922. Local newspapers decried the Klan’s vigilante violence; a diligent district attorney pursued and prosecuted those involved; and the local press and the court cases revealed members’ identities. The ensuing backlash quickly neutralized the Klan in Kern County. The revealed identities enabled the author to profile local KKK adherents. The subsequent career paths of key members and their opponents confirm the shift of public opinion against the Klan despite its public relations efforts.

Alumni perspectives on career preparation during a postdoctoral training program: a qualitative study.

Published evaluations of career preparation of alumni from long-standing postdoctoral fellowship programs in the biomedical sciences are limited and often focus on quantitative analysis of data from extant publicly available sources. Qualitative methods provide the opportunity to gather robust information about specific program elements from structured postdoctoral training programs and the influence of this training on subsequent career paths of alumni. In-depth interviews with a subset of the National Cancer Institute's Cancer Prevention Fellowship Program (CPFP) alumni (n=27), representing more than 25 years of the program's history and multiple career sectors, were conducted to assess alumni reflections on the training environment and career preparation during their time in the CPFP. NVivo software was used to analyze data and identify major themes. Four main themes emerged from these interviews, including: the value of structured training curriculum, mentorship, transdisciplinary environment, and professional identity. Even when reflecting on training that occurred one to two decades earlier, alumni were able to highlight specific components of a structured postdoctoral training program as influencing their research and career trajectories. These results may have relevance for those interested in assessing how postdoctoral training can influence fellows throughout their careers and understanding salient features of structured programs.

Career anchors and paths: The case of Gay, Lesbian, & Bisexual workers

This paper develops a framework for understanding the career experiences and decisions of Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual (GLB) workers. An important conceptual contribution of this paper is the focus on the self-disclosure of someone's GLB identity as an antecedent rather than an outcome in regard to that person's career. Specifically, the decision of a GLB worker to be visible/out of the closet or invisible/closeted promotes the development of need-based career anchors (security and stability, lifestyle, and autonomy and independence) and these direct their subsequent career paths. Understanding the role of stigma in the lives of GLB workers help to explains how an individual may be boundaryless but not protean and vice versa. In addition to developing propositions for understanding the careers of GLB workers, the paper also discusses implications for organizations and individuals with other diversity characteristics.

Immigration and Employer Transitions for STEM Workers

The firm is almost entirely absent from models of immigration, and yet firms play a central role for high-skilled immigration. The H-1B visa program, for example, is a firm-sponsored entry where firms are responsible for every stage: from identifying the immigrant, to employing them, to filing for permanent residency on behalf of the immigrant. This central role of firms for high-skilled immigration suggests the traditional lens for evaluating the impact of immigration on natives through local area labor markets or national age-education approaches may miss important dynamics. We analyze the employment and wage trajectories of high-skilled workers born in America when a high-skilled immigrant arrives at their work site. We use linked employer-employee data during the 1995-2008 period from the Census Bureau for this exercise, which identifies the immigration status and country-of-birth of workers. We follow the subsequent career path of workers after high-skilled immigration occurs to the employee's work site both within firms (e.g., changes in employee salary, relocation to other sites) and across firms (e.g., movements to new jobs or out of workforce, long-term salary adjustments). The richness and depth of the Census Bureau data allow for multiple comparison points: selection on observables (e.g., age, tenure, salary levels and recent growth), varying immigration treatments across different work sites for the same firm for otherwise comparable employees, and (for a subset of cases and short time period at the end of our sample) randomization in H-1B admission lotteries.

Sue Burke: a community matron with passsion

The community matron role was made for Sue Burke. Having been a staff nurse in Basildon PCT for 10 years, she started her district nurse training in 2003. While training, she started to notice that many of her nursing home clients were not being assessed, ‘purely because they had no obvious nursing need.’ Her subsequent career path has grown out of this observation.

A study of reemployment challenges after downsizing: What ever happened to laid-off executives?

M layoffs in the 1980s and 1990s spawned a renewed interest in the effects of unemployment not seen since the Depression. Consistent with this focus, however, laid-off managers weren’t studied much after they had obtained new jobs. Reemployment signaled that a new, if somewhat different, equilibrium in employees’ careers had been restored. More recently, though, greater attention is being paid to the quality of the replacement jobs managers take after their layoffs. Many downsized executives end up “underemployed” in jobs that pay less money, are at lower levels than their last jobs, and for which they are overqualified in terms of their competencies and experience. The present paper addresses four interrelated questions about the subsequent career paths of downsized managers. First, the study presents evidence on the extent to which managers have had to take pay cuts, demotions, or jobs for which they are overqualified. It looks at the trade-offs these individuals make in deciding which replacement jobs to accept. Second, we examine the consequences of underemployment on downsized managers’ satisfaction with, commitment toward, and trust in their new employers. Third, we examine how the length, quality, and helpfulness of various outplacement programs facilitate (or hinder) employees’ abilities to deal with the trauma of job loss, get organized for a job search, and obtain new jobs. Finally, we examine the ways in which poorly conducted downsizings by former employers have long-term consequences for executives’ attitudes toOrganizational Dynamics, Vol. 29, No. 1, pp. 64–75, 2000 ISSN 0090-2616/00/$–see frontmatter © 2000 Elsevier Science, Inc. PII S0090-2616(00)00013-9

Redundant Executive: Personality and the Job Change Experience

Research undertaken to examine the relationship between personality and careers is reported. A study of the personality characteristics of 204 executives who had been made redundant compared 16PF profiles with those of similar populations and it is argued that there are identifiable characteristics amongst the redundant sample, which show them to be more creative and unconventional, but that they also possess a lack of social skills and poor organisational survival abilities. This suggests it is both personality and “social fit” which are significant in suffering an enforced job change. Further research drew on the experiences of 299 executives who had been made redundant. This study explored their reactions to the job loss event and their subsequent learning from experience, in terms of “psychological growth” and the changing patterns of their careers. This suggested that there is a wide variation in the response to the enforced job change and that the personality factors associated with this type of executive may strongly influence their subsequent career paths.

Career Issues in International Assignments

M uch research in international human resource management has focused on the selection and training of personnel for overseas assignments, such as the criteria for selecting candidates and training programs to prepare personnel for cross-cultural encounters. An often neglected area of research in international human resource management is what happens to the subsequent career path of the individual upon return. In other words, did the international assignment have a positive impact on the person's overall career development and subsequent advancement in the organization? In this article I will explore some of the career issues associated with repatriation. The findings presented here are based on in-depth interviews with the vice-president of foreign operations or the vice-president of human resources in 17 European, 18 Japanese, and 11 Australian multinationals. In many cases, people who have served on overseas assignments in their respective companies were also interviewed. These findings were compared with those from interviews with the director of human resource management in 20 U.S. multinationals and a questionnaire survey of 80 U.S. multinationals. (The multinationals from the various countries came from a variety of industries and services, including automobiles, banking and finance, steel and chemical manufacturing, general trading, and so on.) Career Issues in Repatriation

Does premedical academic background influence medical graduates' perceptions of their medical school or their subsequent career paths and decisions?

A survey of McMaster University's first six medical classes (1972-1977) has shown that neither completion of the science courses that are usually required for admission to other medical schools nor achievement of high grades in premedical studies has an important impact on graduates' perceptions of the medical curriculum or on their evaluation of their preparation for the first year of postgraduate training in comparison to other trainees. No influence of either premedical science background or grade point average was detected on career choices in relation to field of medicine entered, level of specialization, location and type of practice, or on factors influencing these choices.

Women in science—The astronomical brain drain

After briefly reviewing the literature on the position of women in science, this article reports the results of a study concerning the long-term employment profiles of doctoral students of radio astronomy. In particular, attention is focused on explaining the divergencies in the subsequent career paths of males and females. Indicators of the ‘quality’ of students' doctoral work are employed to demonstrate that the relative lack of career success shown by women astronomers is most likely to be the result of social factors concerning their role within the family rather than any inherent lack of ability as a scientist or direct discrimination in employment.