Work Activities of Clinician-Educators

Abstract

In order to make meaningful scholarly contributions, clinician-educators need protected time. Forty-one clinician-educators at the University of Washington recorded their work activities in 30-minute intervals for 2 weeks. The average work week was 58.7 hours (SD = 13.8). The time devoted to scholarship, 7.6 hours (13%), was significantly less than the 20% designated for scholarship in the clinician-educator job description (p < .001); 42% of scholarly work occurred outside the regular work week. At a time when many schools rely on clinician-educators to sustain their clinical and teaching missions, schools should ensure that faculty have adequate time and resources to meet scholarly expectations for promotion.