VCOM Faculty Handbook

the Clinical Track.

For appointment or advancement in rank, clinical track faculty’s teaching and service accomplishments outweigh their accomplishments in research and scholarly activity; however, while research may not be a significant part of their employment, scholarly activity remains an expectation. The appointment process for clinical track faculty considers clinical teaching performance, clinical expertise, and accomplishment in the clinical realm. Scholarly activity for clinical track faculty often consists of case reports but may include research on clinical instruction or clinically-based research. Service considerations may include clinical service, professional service, or service-based activities related to community health. The current involvement and benefit for students from the College is considered rather than direct service to the College. However, to advance to the rank of professor, clinical track faculty mush demonstrate sustained outstanding performance in teaching, service, and scholarly activity. Clinical track faculty who no longer hold active board certification are not eligible for promotion in rank through the clinical track. All clinical faculty must be AOA or ABMS board-certified in his or her field or must be considered to be AOA or ABMS board eligible in his or her field. Board eligible implies to be eligible again to meet the requirements to sit for board certification or to be in process of meeting such requirements to be recertified. Other healthcare professionals, who are deemed to be directly and substantively engaged in the clinical education of VCOM students, may be appointed by VCOM but they may not serve as the faculty of record in the clinical education of students and their work with VCOM students must be under the supervision of an AOA or ABMS board-certified or board-eligible VCOM appointed faculty member. The title of Clinical Faculty Instructor may be awarded to those clinical faculty who completed a DO or MD degree and post-doctoral training prior to 1994 when board certification was not required in their primary field of practice and/or to those clinical faculty who achieved initial board certification that has since expired and rendered them ineligible to test again to gain board certification. In this case of student education, a board-certified or board eligible physician that is appointed by VCOM as clinical faculty at the rank of Assistant Professor or higher must also be present in the clinical site and be the faculty of record. These individuals are not eligible for promotion. Clinical faculty members are responsible for the quality of their teaching in the clinical setting and are evaluated annually by students and Discipline Chairs. Clinical track faculty do not have membership in the VCOM Faculty Assembly, do not have representation through the VCOM Faculty Senate, are not eligible for tenure, and are not eligible for VCOM benefits. Research Track Faculty Research track faculty are those faculty members who are employed by VCOM or a primary research partner that utilizes VCOM as a primary academic partner in providing appointment for research faculty (VCOM affiliated university or research center) and who do not have significant contributions to teaching outside of the research laboratory. Research faculty may or may not have an employment contract with VCOM; however, if not employed by VCOM, their research efforts must support a VCOM research program or a joint program with a VCOM affiliate as the primary employer and a collaborative agreement exists. The most common of the collaborative relationships supporting research faculty are through the VCOM/university collaborative partnerships or VCOM/research center collaborative partnerships. Research track faculty seeking advancement in rank must contribute to VCOM’s research mission and to scholarly activity under VCOM’s research (regardless of employer).

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