Academic medicine : journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges
-
The author used data taken in mid-1989 from the Faculty Roster of the Association of American Medical Colleges to calculate the age distributions of U. S. medical school faculty active at any time from 1978 to 1988 and their age-specific probabilities of separating from their academic positions (e.g., to take another position, to enter the private sector, or to retire). ⋯ The same pattern of sensitivity was true of projected turnover. The conclusion is that the end of mandatory retirement alone will have a negligible effect on medical faculty demographics.
-
In anticipation of the end of mandatory retirement for tenured professors in 1994 (mandatory retirement ended for other academics in 1986), the author analyzed the demographics of medical school faculty, using 25 years of data taken in mid-1989 from the Faculty Roster of the Association of American Medical Colleges. The annual growth rate of the number of full-time faculty dropped from well over 10% before 1972 to about 1.5% after 1982, while the mean age of the faculty increased from under 42 years to over 45 in 1988. ⋯ Only about 2.5% of all faculty separations in 1984-1987 occurred at or after age 70, and only 5.5% did even in the tenure tracks of the 20 largest private medical schools. Since such a small proportion of openings is created each year by mandatory retirement, uncapping will have little effect on the age or turnover of medical faculty.
-
In 1988 and 1989, the American Board of Anesthesiology (ABA) developed a knowledge-based standard for its written certification examination. In brief, 13 "judges" developed a construct of a "borderline candidate," i.e., a candidate who was neither ideal nor clearly failing but rather had sufficient knowledge to just pass. ⋯ This standard resulted in higher success rates among the actual examinees taking the ABA examination (84% in 1989 and 90% in 1990) than had the normative standard used previously (80%). The authors suggest that the process they describe permits development of a reproducible criterion for success that is based entirely on mastery of a relevant body of knowledge rather than on normative considerations.