Clinical Health Sciences track

At my institution, we have a separate promotion track for clinicians who do not or cannot go the tenure track. Here, we call it the Clinical Health Sciences or CHS track. Long story short, you receive 'credit' for teaching or administrative duties or clinical work, in addition to the usual credit you receive for research.

The major downside for clinicians who seek to be on the tenure track is that your clinical work does not count towards achieving tenure, and for most of us that is 25% to 50% of our time. Additionally, most of us are engaged in teaching at some level (medical students, residents, fellows or community) and that also does not help you obtain tenure."Grants and publications are the currency of tenure", someone once told me.

There are some downsides to being on the CHS track (you cannot serve on university-wide committees or be section or department head). However, for most academic physicians, the CHS track meets our needs perfectly and you don't need to feel that seeing patients is somehow taking you away from keeping your job.

Now, the president of the Ohio State University is calling into question the whole process of tenure. This is not entirely in the same vein as the CHS process, as he is speaking mostly to the fact that being a great teacher should count towards promotion, but you get the idea. Maybe that whole concept of publish or perish is outdated, certainly for medical school faculty whose life-blood is (and should be) quality patient care.