Strength, Struggles, and Scholarly Aspirations: An Innovative Use of SWOT Analysis to Enhance Academic Productivity Among Pediatric Hospitalists

Background The Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) strategy is widely recognized in business but underutilized in academic medicine. This project applied SWOT analysis to assess academic success and productivity within the pediatric hospital medicine (PHM) division at a large quaternary children's hospital. Methodology This qualitative study included nine faculty members from the PHM division at C. S. Mott Children's Hospital, Ann Arbor, Michigan, in April 2025. An interactive workshop on scholarly productivity was held, using prompts to facilitate discussion of SWOT. Written responses were collected, transcribed, and aggregated for analysis. Three investigators collaboratively coded data until thematic saturation was reached, using inductive thematic analysis to identify themes. Member checking and peer debriefing were completed to ensure the validity of the results. Results Nine PHM faculty attended the workshop. Division strengths included clinical excellence, diverse expertise, leadership, and collaboration. Weaknesses included limited academic knowledge, resources, time, competing demands, and limited academic self-efficacy. Opportunities centered on systems-based work, clinical scholarship, and professional growth. Threats included risks to promotion, compensation, professional fulfillment, recognition, and work balance. Findings guided requests for departmental support, new divisional goals, and identified potential academic projects. Conclusions This project demonstrates the rapid application of SWOT analysis within an academic division, offering a replicable framework for other institutions to assess needs, guide targeted resource allocation, and foster collaboration to improve academic productivity.