Once you receive your license to practice medicine, you instantly have a variety of options and specialized routes available to pursue. This includes focusing on research, working with government institutions like the Veterans Health Administration or charitable organizations such as Doctors Without Borders, mastering a specialty or deciding to focus your skills on the important area of academic medicine. There will always be a need for those who are able to teach and help the next generation of physicians acquire the skills to heal those in their communities.

Here are some strategies on building a successful career in academic medicine:

Identify your character traits

By the time you have reached medical school, you have become familiar with your strengths, weaknesses, areas of interest and values. Are you a natural-born leader? Are you confident in leading instruction for younger physicians and enthusiastic about answering any questions that arise in a clinical or classroom setting? Do you find joy and meaning in watching the development and growth of a medical student as they enter and eventually complete residency? If you find yourself loving the instruction and guidance aspect of your medical education, then a path in academic medicine might be the perfect fit for you.

Expand your knowledge base

While an extraordinary amount can be learned and gained from hands-on experience, there is also tremendous value in furthering your own education before the education of others is placed in your care. Whether it’s pursuing an additional degree to enhance your overall knowledge base or seeking out every possible area to practice academic scholarship before and after residency, furthering your education will positively influence your own instruction methods and inform your teaching philosophy as you focus on academic medicine.

Serve as a mentor

As a natural leader and someone who is interested in pursuing academic medicine, you are a great candidate to be a mentor to junior colleagues and students who have yet to reach your level of expertise. And just because you have already made notable advancements in your career, it does not mean you would not also benefit greatly from sporadic and specific advice from a mentor figure who has once been in your shoes. Finding ways to keep learning and growing as a physician through advice from your own mentor while passing on their wisdom (and your own) to those under your guidance will not only strengthen your own teaching and advising skills but also benefit each person at every step of the mentor chain.

Seek out leadership and administrative roles

Whether it’s in a departmental role at your hospital or in a professional organization, any chance to gain administrative experience should be exploited. When a Chief Medical Officer is trying to find participants or volunteers for internal committees or problem-solving task forces, those interested in academic medicine should be the first ones to volunteer. Finding ways to showcase your skill set and let your confident voice be heard in an analytical and educational context will help demonstrate your natural inclination to practice academic medicine. In addition, each additional role or responsibility will look great on your CV.

Choosing your path

At the end of the day, nobody knows what your best path is more than you. As you start to grow as a medical student and then as a physician resident, it will become apparent whether the life of an expert in academic medicine is right for you. If you walk down the rewarding path of academic medicine, you will not only get to provide care to patients but you will be rewarded knowing you are also instructing the future physicians who will go on to heal thousands – if not hundreds of thousands – of future patients.