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The "new normal": Adapting doctoral trainee career preparation for broad career paths in science.

ABSTRACT: Doctoral recipients in the biomedical sciences and STEM fields are showing increased interest in career opportunities beyond academic positions. While recent research has addressed the interests and preferences of doctoral trainees for non-academic careers, the strategies and resources that trainees use to prepare for a broad job market (non-academic) are poorly understood. The recent adaptation of the Social Cognitive Career Theory to explicitly highlight the interplay of contextual support mechanisms, individual career search efficacy, and self-adaptation of job search processes underscores the value of attention to this explicit career phase. Our research addresses the factors that affect the career search confidence and job search strategies of doctoral trainees with non-academic career interests and is based on nearly 900 respondents from an NIH-funded survey of doctoral students and postdoctoral fellows in the biomedical sciences at two U.S. universities. Using structural equation modeling, we find that trainees pursuing non-academic careers, and/or with low perceived program support for career goals, have lower career development and search process efficacy (CDSE), and receive different levels of support from their advisors/supervisors. We also find evidence of trainee adaptation driven by their career search efficacy, and not by career interests.

SUBMITTER: St Clair R

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5443479 | biostudies-literature | 2017

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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The "new normal": Adapting doctoral trainee career preparation for broad career paths in science.

St Clair Rebekah R Hutto Tamara T MacBeth Cora C Newstetter Wendy W McCarty Nael A NA Melkers Julia J

PloS one 20170524 5

Doctoral recipients in the biomedical sciences and STEM fields are showing increased interest in career opportunities beyond academic positions. While recent research has addressed the interests and preferences of doctoral trainees for non-academic careers, the strategies and resources that trainees use to prepare for a broad job market (non-academic) are poorly understood. The recent adaptation of the Social Cognitive Career Theory to explicitly highlight the interplay of contextual support mec ...[more]

PMID: 28542304

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Project description:The landscape of graduate science education is changing as efforts to diversify the professoriate have increased because academic faculty jobs at universities have grown scarce and more competitive. With this context as a backdrop, the present research examines the perceptions and career goals of advisors and advisees through surveys of PhD students (Study 1, N = 195) and faculty mentors (Study 2, N = 272) in science, technology, engineering, and math disciplines. Study 1 examined actual preferences and career goals of PhD students among three options: research careers, teaching careers, and non-academic careers in industry, and compared the actual preferences of students with what they perceived as being the normative preferences of faculty. Overall, students had mixed preferences but perceived that their advisors had a strong normative preference for research careers for them. Moreover, students who ranked research positions as most desirable felt the most belonging in their academic departments. Further analyses revealed no differences in career preferences as a function of underrepresented minority (URM) student status or first-generation (FG) status, but URM and FG students felt less belonging in their academic departments. Study 2 examined faculty preferences for different careers for their advisees, both in general and for current students in particular. While faculty advisors preferred students to go into research in general, when focusing on specific students, they saw their preferences as being closely aligned with the career preference of each PhD student. Faculty advisors did not perceive any difference in belonging between their students as a function of their URM status. Discrepancies between student and faculty perceptions may occur, in part, because faculty and students do not engage in sufficient discussions about the wider range of career options beyond academic research. Supporting this possibility, PhD students and faculty advisors reported feeling more comfortable discussing research careers with each other than either non-academic industry positions or teaching positions. Discussion centers on the implications of these findings for interpersonal and institutional efforts to foster diversity in the professoriate and to create open communication about career development.

Project description:BackgroundRecently, there have been concerted efforts to improve racial and ethnic diversity in the physician-scientist workforce. Identifying factors associated with career choices among those underrepresented in medicine and science is a necessary first step to advance this objective. The aim of the present study was to assess the attitudes and factors associated with academic and research career interests among underrepresented predoctoral physician-scientists.MethodsA cross-sectional 70-question survey was distributed to all predoctoral single degree (MD or DO) and dual degree (MD/PhD or DO/PhD) trainees at 32 medical schools in the United States from 2012 to 2014. Main outcomes included factors important to advancement in academic medicine, intended medical specialty, and future career plans. To test the post-hoc hypothesis of whether trainees from underrepresented groups have differing perceptions of career trajectories and obstacles than their counterparts, we evaluated responses according to self-identified race/ethnic status using Chi-square and Fisher's exact tests. All tests were two-sided and significance level of < 0.05 was used.ResultsThere were a total of 4433 responses representing all predoctoral training stages. The response rate was 27%. Most respondents were single degree trainees (MD/DO 79% vs MD/DO-PhD 21%). Most respondents self-identified as White (67%), followed by Multi-racial or Other (14.3%), Asian or Pacific Islander (10.4%), Hispanic (6%), and Black or African American (4.1%). Desired career sector, career intention, and clinical specialty interest differed across race/ethnic groups. With respect to career selection factors, anticipated non-work related responsibilities during residency were also significantly different between these groups. By multivariable regression analysis, Black or African American trainees were significantly less likely than White trainees to indicate a career in academia (OR 0.496, 95% CI 0.322-0.764) and basic research (OR 0.314, 95% CI 0.115-0.857), while Multi-racial or Other trainees were also less likely than White trainees to indicate a career in academia (OR 0.763, 95% CI 0.594-0.980).ConclusionsThese data represent the first in-depth survey of career aspirations, perceptions, and interests between demographically underrepresented and non-underrepresented predoctoral physician-scientist trainees. Our results identify key differences between these cohorts, which may guide efforts to improve diversity within the physician-scientist workforce.

Project description:Public health (PH) skills are core to building responsive and appropriate health systems, and PH personnel including medical specialists are embedded in many countries' health systems. In South Africa, the medical specialty in PH, Public Health Medicine (PHM), has existed for over 40 years. Four years of accredited training plus success in a single national exit exam allows specialist registration with the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA). However, there are few posts designated specifically for PHM specialists in SA's health system. In view of uncertain roles, this research was designed to determine specialists' career paths, their work, job satisfaction, and perspectives on the future of the specialty. We combined three databases to generate the study population and invited all specialists to participate in an online or hard-copy survey. We found that in 2010, PHM was a small specialty of less 200 physicians. Of the 151 contactable, eligible physicians, 55.6% completed the questionnaire. Participants represented an aging group (median age = 49) of specialists and recent graduates were increasingly women. They largely worked in academic institutions (as managers, teachers, and researchers) and in the public sector health system; were motivated by a sense of social justice and their training was formative, exposing them to work settings which they later entered; were largely highly satisfied at work, but many worked in non-specialist positions. Indeed, one fifth had not registered with the HPCSA as specialists. They were concerned about the specialty's poor visibility and identity, but did not see other PH professionals as a threat. They believed that the specialty should refine its competencies, demonstrate its value and advocate for service positions at all levels of the public sector health service. PHM has a contribution to make-reorienting services to protect communities, preventing ill health, analyzing disease burdens locally, identifying innovations in a resource-constrained health service, largely preoccupied with curative care services.

Dataset Information

The "new normal": Adapting doctoral trainee career preparation for broad career paths in science.

Publications

The "new normal": Adapting doctoral trainee career preparation for broad career paths in science.

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