EARLY PREDICTORS OF CAREER ACHIEVEMENT IN ACADEMIC MEDICINE

Objective. - To identify early personal and scholastic factors that predict academic career choice and long-term career achievement among academic physicians. Design. - A longitudinal cohort study. Participants. - Nine hundred forty-four male physicians who graduated from The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Md, from 1948 through 1964. Outcome Measures. - Career achievement outcomes included attained faculty rank in 1990 and the number of citations (20 to 24 years after graduation) to published work. Results. - Of the 944 physicians, 424 (45%) had chosen academic careers. Scholastic performance and research experience in medical school were independently associated with having chosen an academic career (P < .001). Among academicians, higher attained rank in 1990 was independently associated with the following: (1) membership in Alpha Omega Alpha (relative risk [RR] = 4.94, P = .0001); (2) rank in the top third of the graduating class (RR = 2.68, P = .01); and (3) research experience in medical school (RR = 3.11, P = .0001). These three factors were also independently associated with more citations to participants' published work (P < .05). Conclusion. - These data suggest that scholastic performance and research experience during medical school predict career achievement in academic medicine over 20 years in the future.