Knowledge and use of academic portfolios among primary care departments in U.S. medical schools.

Background And Purpose: Portfolios are used to summarize and communicate the academic accomplishments of faculty seeking career development and promotion.

Method: We assessed knowledge and use of the portfolio in a cross sectional survey of 435 academic chairpersons of family medicine and division directors of general internal medicine and general pediatrics.

Results: Of the 241 respondents (55% response rate), 69% reported knowledge of portfolios and 55% used portfolios. Satisfaction with the source of information on a faculty candidate was greater when portfolios were used (85.5% of respondents) than when they were not used (67.3% of respondents; p = .01). Increased knowledge and use of portfolios was associated with respondents working at institutions with academic fellowships/advanced education programs or who had fellowship training (ps = .01).

Conclusion: Results suggest that leaders of primary care departments use portfolios to promote the career development of their faculty and that portfolio use is influenced by attitudes and training.