Institutional sources of medical school faculty and patterns of personnel flow among medical schools.
OBJECTIVE
To describe patterns of interaction among U.S. medical schools related to faculty production and faculty hiring.


METHODS
The medical school origins of MD faculty earning degrees between 1980 and 1989 and holding full-time positions in 1995 were used to gauge organizations' tendencies to interact and to identify institutional participants and their roles in reciprocal interactions. Additional data on medical school characteristics were used to characterize faculty suppliers, employers, and interacting organizations. Included in the present study were 19,381 individuals who were active, full-time members in 1995 and who held MD degrees earned between 1980 and 1989 from one of the 125 accredited U.S. medical schools.


RESULTS
Major research-oriented medical schools were the most active suppliers of faculty to other medical schools. Foremost among these "research" schools was Harvard Medical School, which had nearly 20% of its 1980-1989 graduates widely dispersed among all the medical schools in 1995. Data on reciprocal interactions involving nine or more faculty were used to form empirically based groups of three geographically proximate dyads in North Carolina, Michigan, and Puerto Rico, and one complex cluster of 17 schools.


CONCLUSIONS
The findings suggest that medical schools can be grouped and characterized by looking at institutional-level data on faculty production and employment. Research-oriented medical schools have been the major producers of medical school faculty. Recent emphasis on generalist careers may have the unintended consequence of further diminishing the variety of institutional sources of medical school faculty.
Look
M V
MV
Virginia Tech, Falls Church, USA. mlook@qrc.com
D000046:Academic Medical Centers / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D004522:Educational Status; D004651:Employment; D005180:Faculty, Medical / Q000706:statistics & numerical data / Q000600:supply & distribution*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007373:Interinstitutional Relations; D008297:Male; D014481:United States