Challenges to Meeting Promotional Requirements for Fully Affiliated Faculty Requisites to be a successful academic cardiologist. Each of these entities requires separate skills, and there is incomplete overlap between them, that is, development of successful research productivity does not necessarily confer excellent clinical skills or teaching proficiency. Success in the research arena, basic or clinical, requires training, creativity and the application of a sufficient fraction of the individual's time to generate data, analyze it and prepare manuscripts reporting the results. Success as a clinician requires sufficient experience to acquire the requisite clinical acumen and skills, an ongoing clinical practice and continuous self-education to maintain and extend proficiency. Success as an educator requires the motivation to teach, in-depth knowledge of the subject and the acquisition of the necessary skills to communicate concepts to students.
Successful research requires funding.
It is no longer possible to conduct important research in one's spare time using borrowed facilities. Consequently, it is necessary to secure funding to support both the costs of the research and the faculty member's salary. Securing research funding requires the development of requisite credentials and the production of credible proposals to funding organizations. Consequently, an individual in the early stages of his or her career must devote the majority of their time and effort to acquire such skills and credentials. Such an effort allocation is not consistent with the time needed to develop and maintain top-flight clinical credentials.