• Deborah Blazey-Martin, Phyllis L Carr, Norma Terrin, Janis L Breeze, Carolyn Luk, Anita Raj, and Karen M Freund.
• Internal Medicine and Adult Primary Care, Tufts Medical Center, 800 Washington St., Box 212, Boston, MA, 02111, USA. dblazey-martin@tuftsmedicalcenter.org.
• J Gen Intern Med. 2017 Jul 1; 32 (7): 747-752.

BackgroundPrior cross-sectional research has found that generalists have lower rates of academic advancement than specialists and basic science faculty.ObjectiveOur objective was to examine generalists relative to other medical faculty in advancement and academic productivity.DesignIn 2012, we conducted a follow-up survey (n = 607) of 1214 participants in the 1995 National Faculty Survey cohort and supplemented survey responses with publicly available data.ParticipantsParticipants were randomly selected faculty from 24 US medical schools, oversampling for generalists, underrepresented minorities, and senior women.Main MeasuresThe primary outcomes were (1) promotion to full professor and (2) productivity, as indicated by mean number of peer-reviewed publications, and federal grant support in the prior 2 years. When comparing generalists with medical specialists, surgical specialists, and basic scientists on these outcomes, we adjusted for gender, race/ethnicity, effort distribution, parental and marital status, retention in academic career, and years in academia. When modeling promotion to full professor, we also adjusted for publications.Key ResultsIn the intervening 17 years, generalists were least likely to have become full professors (53%) compared with medical specialists (67%), surgeons (66%), and basic scientists (78%, p < 0.0001). Generalists had a lower number of publications (mean = 44) than other faculty [medical specialists (56), surgeons (57), and basic scientists (83), p < 0.0001]. In the prior 2 years, generalists were as likely to receive federal grant funding (26%) as medical (21%) and surgical specialists (21%), but less likely than basic scientists (51%, p < 0.0001). In multivariable analyses, generalists were less likely to be promoted to full professor; however, there were no differences in promotion between groups when including publications as a covariate.ConclusionsBetween 1995 and 2012, generalists were less likely to be promoted than other academic faculty; this difference in advancement appears to be related to their lower rate of publication.

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