Career-success scale - a new instrument to assess young physicians' academic career steps.
BACKGROUND
Within the framework of a prospective cohort study of Swiss medical school graduates, a Career-Success Scale (CSS) was constructed in a sample of young physicians choosing different career paths in medicine. Furthermore the influence of personality factors, the participants' personal situation, and career related factors on their career success was investigated.


METHODS
406 residents were assessed in terms of career aspired to, and their career progress. The Career-Success Scale, consisting of 7 items, was developed and validated, addressing objective criteria of academic career advancement. The influence of gender and career aspiration was investigated by a two-factorial analysis of variance, the relationships between personality factors, personal situation, career related factors and the Career-Success Scale by a multivariate linear regression analysis.


RESULTS
The unidimensional Career-Success Scale has an internal consistency of 0.76. It is significantly correlated at the bivariate level with gender, instrumentality, and all career related factors, particularly with academic career and received mentoring. In multiple regression, only gender, academic career, surgery as chosen specialty, and received mentoring are significant predictors. The highest values were observed in participants aspiring to an academic career, followed by those pursuing a hospital career and those wanting to run a private practice. Independent of the career aspired to, female residents have lower scores than their male colleagues.


CONCLUSIONS
The Career-Success Scale proved to be a short, reliable and valid instrument to measure career achievements. As mentoring is an independent predictor of career success, mentoring programs could be an important instrument to specifically enhance careers of female physicians in academia.
Department of Psychosocial Medicine, Zurich University Hospital, Zurich, Switzerland. barbara.buddeberg@usz.ch
Barbara
B
Buddeberg-Fischer
Martina
M
Stamm
Claus
C
Buddeberg
Richard
R
Klaghofer
D000328:Adult; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D002321:Career Choice; D002322:Career Mobility; D015331:Cohort Studies; D003625:Data Collection; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007396:Internship and Residency; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010820:Physicians / Q000523:psychology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D012044:Regression Analysis; D012737:Sex Factors; D013557:Switzerland