Clinician-Educator Career Advancement at a Research-Intensive Cancer Center: Faculty Perceptions and Priorities for a Promotion Pathway.

Clinician-educator (CE) faculty are essential to the education of trainees in cancer care, yet at research-intensive institutions advancement pathways for education-focused faculty are often unclear. Describe CE perceptions of advancement and recognition of educational work and identify priorities for a CE promotion pathway at a large cancer center. Anonymous faculty survey (January 2023) with analyses restricted to clinical faculty who self-identified as CEs or were unsure of their CE status. Descriptive statistics were reported; exploratory Kruskal-Wallis tests compared responses by rank and years in rank. One open-ended item on barriers underwent inductive content analysis by two coders. IRB approved (2022 - 1006). Of 208 respondents, 142 were clinical faculty; 103 (72.5%) identified as CEs or were unsure of their CE status. Nearly half perceived no clear advancement path (49/103, 47.6%), while 27/103 (26.2%) perceived a clear path. Most reported educational effort was undervalued relative to research for academic recognition (72/103, 69.9%) and promotion impact (67/103, 64.7%). A majority agreed that establishing a CE pathway would aid advancement (60/103, 57.9%). Highest-priority elements were transparent promotion criteria (64/103, 62.1%), protected time for education (64/103, 62.1%), and tools to document and quantify educational effort (60/103, 58.3%). CE faculty at a research-intensive center perceived unclear advancement and lower recognition of educational work. Institutions seeking to strengthen cancer education should implement transparent CE-specific criteria, allocate protected education time, and adopt systems that document educational contributions.