Strategies for successful integration of work from home faculty in an academic radiology department

Academic radiology departments have added increasing numbers of entirely remote "work-from-home" or hybrid faculty. This change has presented both an opportunity to recruit and retain faculty as well as a set of challenges to maintaining the full academic mission and educational environment. In this article we describe our experience with creating a remote faculty position and the key elements that we believe made it successful. Guiding principles for the department and faculty member accepting such a position are proposed and discussed.

Upwardly mobile biographies. An analysis of turning points in the careers of working-class faculty

Building upon Bourdieusian sociology of education and Randall Collins' theory of, interaction ritual chains, this paper contributes to the literature on the biographical life course by analyzing the biographies of upwardly mobile academics, i.e. those who, escaped the "collective fate of their class." Based on the collection of 25 unstructured, narrative interviews (life story narratives) and additional individual in-depth interviews, (repeated interviews, interviews with families, and friends), a total of 75 qualitative, interviews, I trace the main biographical metamorphoses of upwardly mobile, academics. The meticulous analysis of the narrations brings about an answer to the, question "What was the role of a social class in their biographical metamorphoses?", The analysis of the turning points in the under-researched context of the postcommunist, semi-peripheral, and yet neoliberal academic system enables the paper to, discuss social circumstances which play a crucial role in this kind of upward mobility, e.g. early discovered talent, presence of books at home, choice of high school, early contact with the legitimized culture, opportunity structure of the higher education system under transition and transnational experience.

Comprehensiveness of distributed medical education systems: a regional population-based perspective

BACKGROUND

The core business of medical schools includes clinical (education and service) and academic (research) activities. Our objective was to assess the degree to which these activities exist in a distributed medical education system in Canada.

METHODS

A population-based design was utilized. Programs were contacted and public records were searched for medical trainees and faculty positions within a province in Canada during the 2017/2018 academic year. Data were expressed as positions per 100,000 residents within the Lower Mainland, Island, and Northern and Southern interior geographical regions.

RESULTS

Substantial differences in the distribution of medical students by region was observed with the highest observed in the Northern region at 45.5 per 100,000 as compared to Lower Mainland, Island, and Southern regions of 25.4, 16.8, 16.0 per 100,000, respectively. The distribution of family medicine residents was less variable with 14.9, 10.7, 8.9, and 5.8 per 100,000 in the Northern, Island, Southern, and Lower Mainland regions, respectively. In contrast, there was a marked disparity in distribution of specialty residents with 40.8 per 100,000 in the Lower Mainland as compared to 7.5, 3.2, and 1.3 per 100,000 in the Island, Northern, and Southern regions, respectively. Clinical faculty were distributed with the highest observed in the Northern region at 180.4 per 100,000 as compared to Southern, Island, and Lower Mainland regions of 166.9, 138.5, and 128.4, respectively. In contrast, academic faculty were disproportionately represented in the Lower Mainland and Island regions (92.8 and 50.7 per 100,000) as compared to the Northern and Southern (1.4 and 1.2 per 100,000) regions, respectively.

CONCLUSIONS

While there has been successful redistribution of medical students, family medicine residents, and clinical faculty, this has not been the case for specialty residents and academic faculty.

US Psychiatry Faculty: Academic Rank, Gender and Racial Profile

OBJECTIVE

The gender and racial underrepresentation persist in academic psychiatry faculty appointments. Our study investigated the gender and racial distribution and its temporal trends in academic psychiatry faculty positions across the USA over a 12-year period.

METHODS

Using the annual reports of the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), a retrospective cross-sectional study was conducted. Simple descriptive statistics analyzed the time trends and the distribution of gender and race across academic ranks, tenure, and degree types.

RESULTS

Over the 12-year study period, the White race was the most represented at each rank. In the lower academic ranks, there was an increased representation of Asians, while the minority race/ethnicities experienced minimal increment. Similarly, males were overrepresented at higher academic ranks, with females increasing in proportion at lower academic ranks.

CONCLUSIONS

Females and minorities remain underrepresented in academic psychiatry faculty positions, especially among senior academic and leadership positions. Differences in tenure tracks and degree types may contribute to the overrepresentation of White and male academic physicians.

Gender Differences Among Academic Pediatric Radiology Faculty in the United States and Canada

OBJECTIVE

It is currently unknown whether efforts in recent years to create equal opportunities for female faculty in academic medicine have succeeded. We looked at faculty members in academic pediatric radiology departments across the United States and Canada to assess for evidence of gender disparities and differences in academic performance between males and females.

METHODS

The analysis included diagnostic radiology programs across the United States and Canada, as specified by the American Medical Association's Fellowship and Residency Electronic Interactive Database (FREIDA Online) and the Canadian Resident Matching Service website. The Scopus database was used to retrieve the H-index, number of publications, and number of citations for each faculty member. We examined the distribution of male and female faculty members across geographical regions, academic ranks, and leadership roles. Academic performance was also compared.

RESULTS

Across all regions and academic ranks, disparities exist between the number of male and female faculty members. The greatest disparity was found amongst the professor rank, where more than 70% of positions were occupied by males. Female professors were found to demonstrate similar levels of academic performance compared to their male counterparts, although this parity was not observed amongst assistant and associate professors.

CONCLUSION

Women occupied almost half (46.6%) of the total academic pediatric radiology workforce, despite having been previously shown to make up only 21% of radiologists. However, gender disparities currently exist among academic pediatric radiology faculty, with a significantly higher percentage of men in pediatric radiology faculty positions. Women, however, currently occupy a greater percentage of leadership positions compared to men, even though the majority of senior academic ranks are held by men.

Academic job satisfaction questionnaire: Construction and validation in Saudi Arabia

Background:

Colleges and universities are becoming increasingly accountable for teaching outcomes in order to meet rigorous accreditation standards. Job satisfaction (JS) seems more difficult to measure in the academic field in view of the complexity of roles, duties and responsibilities.

Objectives:

To compile and determine the psychometric properties of a proposed Academic Job Satisfaction Questionnaire (AJSQ) suitable for university faculty, and amenable to future upgrading.

Materials and Methods:

A 46-item five-option Likert-type draft questionnaire on JS was distributed for anonymous self-reporting by all the academic staff of five colleges in University of Dammam (n=340). The outcome measures were (1) factor analysis of the questionnaire items, (2) intra-factor α-Coefficient of Internal Consistency Reliability, (3) inter-factor correlations, (4) comparison of psychometric properties in separately analyzed main faculty subgroups.

Results:

The response rate was 72.9 percent. Factor analysis extracted eight factors which conjointly explained 60.3 percent of the variance in JS. These factors, in descending order of eigenvalue, were labeled “Authority”, “Supervision”, “Policies and Facilities”, “My Work Itself”, “Interpersonal Relationships”, “Commitment”, “Salary” and “Workload”. Cronbach's-α ranged from 0.90 in Supervision to 0.63 in Salary and Workload. All inter-factor correlations were positive and significant, ranging from 0.65 to 0.23. The psychometric properties of the instrument in separately analyzed subgroups divided by sex, nationality, college and clinical duties produced fairly comparable findings.

Conclusion:

The AJSQ demonstrated good overall psychometric properties in terms of construct validity and internal consistency reliability in both the overall sample and its separately analyzed subgroups. Recommendation: To replicate these findings in larger multicenter samples of academic staff.