1. Planning and Managing your Academic Career: Deciding Where to Go and How to Get There
Iain Young MD, CM, FRCPC
Professor, Department of Pathology & Molecular Medicine
School of Medicine, Queen’s University
August 2017

2. Session Objectives Enhance your understanding of:
The breadth of career paths available to the academic physician
Key success factors for academic advancement
The importance of proactive management of one’s academic career
The annual review process for clinical faculty and its relationship to Queen’s and SEAMO
Reappointment, promotion and tenure application processes

3. A Traditional Academic Career
Full Professor
Associate Professor
Assistant Professor

4. The Academic Physician’s Career: A Modern Paradigm
Hospital executive leadership
External roles
Deanery
Centre director
External leadership
UGME/PGME leadership
Program management
Medical leadership
Clinical Service
Education
Admin
Research

5. Academic Career Planning: Important Generalizations
A successful academic career can be based on a wide range of themes:
Expert clinical care
Education
Research
Management and leadership
Being a very good clinician and a committed teacher are minimum expectations of the academic physician
Progress through the academic ranks requires performance that exceeds these baselines

6. Academic Career Paths: Important Generalizations
The range of academic career paths:
Clinician scholar
Clinical care-predominant role description
Educator scholar
Major educational responsibilities
Research scholar
Significant expectations for research productivity, usually linked to acquisition of external funding
Scholarship is a common element to all career paths that are associated with academic advancement and promotion

7. Paths to Promotion to Associate Professor: 2009-14

8. Paths to Promotion to Professor: 2009-14

9. A Proactive Approach to Managing One’s Academic Career
Pursue opportunities for scholarship
Clinical/Administrative
Educational/Administrative
Maintain a teaching dossier
Generate outputs in your administrative roles
Engage with external stakeholders/agencies; contribute outside the AHSC
Set personal objectives and manage your progress
Utilize mentors and coaches

10. Mentors are Enablers of Success
Self-made successes are very rare
A mentor provides experience, knowledge, views and wisdom in order to encourage and facilitate an individual’s growth and development
Mentoring relationships vary in type and duration depending on their purpose, for example:
Informal long term source of advice and support
Structured, short term coaching around establishing a research program

11. Identifying Mentors The Department Head plays an integral role
Defining the purpose of the mentoring relationship is the critical first step
Match the assets of potential mentors to your needs from the relationship
The most effective mentoring relationships are mutually beneficial

12. Purposes of the Annual Review
Provide an annual performance assessment that will:
Recognize faculty contributions and achievement
Enable monitoring of professional growth, professional development and career planning
Provide an opportunity to adjust professional role descriptions as appropriate to individual faculty member’s circumstances
Report professional activity that is relevant to accountability management in SEAMO and the determination of departmental funding

13. Clinical Faculty Annual Report
Standardized electronic format
Details clinical, educational, research and administrative activity
Covers the calendar year
Submission to Department Head required in January
Completeness is very important

14. Annual Review Process: Overview
Written review by Department Head, taking into account the information provided on the Annual Report
Faculty member meets with Head to discuss performance and activity, objectives for the upcoming year, any potential changes to role description and career planning
Copies of the annual report and review are maintained in the member’s Official File and the Dean’s office

15. Annual Review Process: Relation to Compensation
The annual review process is not linked to a Queen’s merit allocation system that affects compensation
Compensation is determined by departmental practice plans that are established by individual departments within a SEAMO framework
Each department’s SEAMO funding is determined by the aggregate activity of its members; therefore, complete reporting of individual activity is critically important

16. Promotion, Reappointment and Tenure Processes
Elected departmental committees are the initial level of review of applications for reappointment, promotion and tenure
PRT Committee makes recommendation to the Department Head who makes a separate evaluation and recommendation to the Dean who in turn makes a recommendation to the Provost
Applications for reappointment must follow established timelines but application for promotion/tenure is at discretion of candidate
The process is governed by the Queen’s Senate policies for Geographically Full-Time (GFT) appointees

17. Renewal of Appointment
Application for the first renewed appointment occurs during the third year of the initial appointment.
The duration of the first renewed appointment is usually three years.
Subsequent applications for renewal may be for five years or more, depending on performance.
If performance is not meeting expectations then renewed appointments may be for less than three years.

18. Applications for Tenure
Timing of application is at candidate’s discretion.
Criteria for tenure are very similar to those for promotion to Associate Professor.
The benefits of tenure:
Sense of professional accomplishment and prestige
Reputational benefit to the Department and University
Obviates need for subsequent reappointment processes
Potential financial benefit that is limited to that part of income originating from Queen’s base budget
The risk of application:
Denial results in a one-year terminal appointment

19. Last Words
Your academic career is a very important project so manage it with commitment and conviction
Integrate scholarship into whatever career path you choose
Seek out mentors and coaches and take advantage of their experience and good nature