Survey of staff positions in academic hematology in 1971.

R ECENT REVISIONS OF PREDOCTORAL AND POSTDOCTORAL training programs in medicine, and decreasing financial support for training programs in medical subspecialities, including hematology, have made it desirable to redefine the structure of subspecialties, including the numbers of subspecialists and their activities in academic institutions. How many hematologists now hold positions in academic institutions? Are there greater needs in some specific areas of hematology than in others? Are we training more hematologists than will be needed? Answers to these and numerous related questions can begin to be formulated only if data about the present status of hematology are collected and made available. This survey, authorized by the American Society of Hematology in the summer of 1971, was undertaken in an effort to obtain some information about the present status of academic hematology in this country. We did not attempt to ascertain the needs for hematologists in service laboratories of nonacademic institutions or in the delivery of health care, apart from teaching institutions. Both of these functions are recognized as important ones but to obtain data about them on a nationwide basis would require more resources and time than were available for the present study. The data in this report were complied from responses to a questionnaire submitted to institutions in the United States which were known to have academic programs in hematology. Such programs, by our definition, included both teaching and research and were staffed by one or more full-time hematologists. The questionnaire was sent to a leading hematologist, to the Chairman of the Department of Medicine, or to the Dean of each institution. The respondents were asked to complete a table with data on numbers of positions, distribution of position in departments, sources of funds for salaries for the hematologists, time spent in various activities, and research interests of the hematologists. This table was followed by three related questions : (1) the prospect for institutional support if funds from granting agencies were unavailable; (2) the numbers of positions now existing which were in existence in 1960; and (3) the numbers of physicians in private practice at that institution whose practice included a significant proportion (30% or more) of patients with hematological diseases. Each university respondent was asked to complete the questionnaire for all