What Is an Academic General Internist?

Abstract

Academic divisions of general internal medicine have developed and flourished in the last 2 decades. Young faculty can join these divisions in 1 of 3 possible career paths: clinical educator, clinical researcher, and, most recently, the "hospitalist." This article describes the typical job description, training pathway, and rewards and challenges for each path for students and residents considering a career in academic general internal medicine.

Addressing the “Global Health Tax” and “Wild Cards”

“…Most academic health centers frame career development pathways for these variations, including the full-time clinician, clinician–educator, or clinician–researcher. 17 Each pathway has its own trade-offs: 100% FTE clinicians may receive higher salaries but experience less flexible and more unpredictable work schedules due to patient care issues; clinician–researchers may enjoy pursuing new science and being experts in their field, but constantly struggle to obtain grants. Most academic physicians are expected to teach, so these efforts are only sometimes reimbursed incrementally.…”

Top-Down Research, Generalists, and Google Scholar: Does Google Scholar Facilitate Breakthrough Research?

“…However, the process of publishing peer-reviewed research, particularly in high-impact factor journals, can serve to credential researchers [46], enabling them to leverage inter-disciplinary research in applying for grants and positions in disciplines far from the fields in which they originally trained. Third and finally, generalists can finally realize their full utility, which lies in recognizing mechanisms, trends, and developments that fall into the interstices between specializations, as well as the neglected topics glossed over even by subspecializations [47]. Moreover, generalists have the ability to make connections across multiple disciplines, leveraging analogies from other fields to arrive at inferences about common mechanisms.…”

Use of an electronic medical record to detect patients at high risk of metformin-induced lactic acidosis

“…During the past several decades there has been a shift in location of medical care from the inpatient to the outpatient setting, driven in part by the increasing sophistication of outpatient care and the higher costs of inpatient care. 5 There has been a slow but steady progression in the use of the electronic medical record (EMR) in ambulatory care over the past five years in the United States, while other industrialized countries have achieved substantial breakthroughs in implementing EMRs in primary care. 6 Among the advantages of EMRs is the potential for greater ease of measuring ambulatory care quality, outcomes, and errors.…”

“…During the past several decades there has been a shift in location of medical care from the inpatient to the outpatient setting, driven in part by the increasing sophistication of outpatient care and the higher costs of inpatient care. 5 There has been a slow but steady progression in the use of the electronic medical record (EMR) in ambulatory care over the past five years …”