Study objective: Tenure was designed to guarantee academic freedom through lifelong job security. Productive research, especially in the basic sciences, is the main criterion for tenure at most institutions; therefore faculty in more clinically focused specialties may experience more difficulty obtaining tenure. We examined the relationship between academic emergency medicine and tenure.
Methods: We used a questionnaire to survey the directors of all 108 approved US emergency medicine residency programs. The surveyed population was asked whether the program was affiliated with a medical school, the number of full-time faculty, and how many faculty members were tenured or on the tenure track. Follow-up mailings were sent to nonresponders. We also conducted a search of the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) database to compare the number of emergency medicine faculty involved in the tenure process in other specialties.
Results: One hundred surveys (93%) were returned. At programs in which faculty were eligible for tenure, 9% (95% confidence interval [CI], 4% to 16%) were tenured and 27% (95% CI, 19% to 37%) were on the tenure track. Therefore only 36% of all EM faculty (95% CI, 27% to 46%) were tenured or on the tenure track. Among the 53 residency programs that offered tenure, 45% (95% CI, 32% to 60%) had no tenured faculty. At programs with academic department status, 74% of chairs were tenured, in contrast to only 32% of chiefs at institutions without academic department status (95% CI for difference of 42%, 14% to 71%). The AAMC survey revealed that about one-third as many emergency medicine faculty members were tenured compared with the other specialties. The proportion of faculty on the tenure track, however, was similar between the specialties.
Conclusion: Most eligible emergency medicine faculty members are not tenured or on track to become tenured, and fewer emergency medicine faculty are tenured compared with the more traditional specialties. Emergency medicine may be vulnerable to being considered less academic unless its faculty members gain access to the tenure process.