How to be a young successful academic cardiothoracic surgeon

Abstract

Central MessageUnderstand the 3 pillars of academic surgery (clinical service, research, and education) and carve out a path to become a leader and innovator in the field.PerspectiveAs one embarks on their career in academic cardiothoracic surgery, it is important to understand all the elements and various metrics that will make it successful. How to balance all these elements concomitantly and still manage to become an excellent clinician scholar is vital to one's personal and professional growth.See Commentary on page 698. Understand the 3 pillars of academic surgery (clinical service, research, and education) and carve out a path to become a leader and innovator in the field. As one embarks on their career in academic cardiothoracic surgery, it is important to understand all the elements and various metrics that will make it successful. How to balance all these elements concomitantly and still manage to become an excellent clinician scholar is vital to one's personal and professional growth. See Commentary on page 698. Traditionally, 3 pillars are considered to be the cornerstone of academic surgery: clinical service, research, and education. These tenets must be built on a solid foundation when starting one's career. After the completion of a fellowship, when choosing a faculty position, it is important to understand this academic model and build a promotional portfolio (Figure 1). The intent of this article is to familiarize graduating cardiothoracic fellows with all the various elements that are necessary for building a successful career. It includes advice on the selection of programs that incorporate opportunities that can help young clinicians grow and build a platform for faculty development and mentorship within an institution. After deciding on an academic path and clinical niche (cardiac, thoracic, or both), a fundamental question for narrowing the job search space is to match the “best” program to one's aspirations and interests, which may lie in research or education. Previous experience with similar interests that aligns with the applicant's would certainly make the transition into practice smoother. Therefore, it's important to select an institution that enhances and strengthens one's area of interest, where the components to building a rewarding career are already set in place. For instance, a position that focuses on recruiting patients for clinical trials requires the infrastructure to recruit, enroll, and monitor patients registered in the trial, and it will be difficult to launch this type of career at a site that does not routinely conduct this type of research without a major endowment. It is therefore crucial to carefully scrutinize the practice, workload, chief of the division, partners, and ancillary support of all the open positions before selecting one. The utmost priority for becoming a world-class surgeon is earning a stellar reputation, the crux of which is providing excellent clinical care while developing a wide referral base (Figure 1).1Kron I. Verrier E. Developing academic cardiothoracic surgeons.J Thorac Cardiovasc Surg. 2001; 121: S1-S2Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (5) Google Scholar Therefore, at the outset of embarking on a practice in cardiothoracic surgery, new attendings should introduce themselves to cardiologists, gastroenterologists, and pulmonologists at the new institution and build a practice referral. Gradually, introductions to interventional cardiologists, medical and radiation oncologists, radiologists, and pathologists will also be made. All these service lines integrate closely with cardiothoracic surgery, and therefore it is important to network with these groups of physicians. If the host institution does not have multidisciplinary boards, which is atypical, then the initiative should be taken to build one. Tumor boards and multidisciplinary conferences are a great resource for networking at a home institution, and they allow for opportunities to engage