Teaching in the Health Sciences: Is there a Viable Teaching Career Path?

Abstract

Career pathways for collaborative biostatisticians, where the primary focus is collaborative research, have been established in many biostatistics departments and research organizations in the last decade or so. Comparable career pathways for teaching biostatisticians, where the primary focus is teaching and teaching-related research, are much rarer, although they are becoming more common in statistics departments. These positions go by a variety of names including Teaching Professor, Professor of the Practice, or Clinical Professor. In this webinar a panel of faculty in teaching-focused positions in biostatistics will discuss the opportunities and challenges for such positions. We will discuss how common teaching-focused positions are; the typical position responsibilities, advancement opportunities, and evaluation metrics; the value of these positions for their institutions; and the barriers to their implementation. This webinar will interest biostatisticians currently in or considering teaching-focused positions, PhD students and postdocs curious about these types of positions, as well as department heads thinking about how such positions could be structured.