The School of Medicine hosted two Junior Faculty Development Workshops earlier this year to give provide junior faculty an overview of the various career tracks in academic medicine and information about the promotion and tenure process.
The workshops, developed by David Rogers, M.D., MHPE, senior associate dean for Faculty Affairs and Professional Development in the School of Medicine, and Jessica Merlin, M.D., MBA, assistant professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases, came as a result of feedback from the 2016 UAB Medicine Faculty Engagement Survey.
“Junior faculty members had expressed that they desired more coaching about their career development,” Rogers said. “We purposely created the event to allow them to receive input from several different faculty members at different stages in their careers and also from members of the School of Medicine Faculty Council. We were pleased with the event as the participants were asking sometimes difficult questions that were important to them and receiving practical and authentic responses from the panelists.”
He said a total 151 faculty members attended the two workshops, held on consecutive Friday afternoons in the West Pavilion Conference Center. After an overview about academic medicine career paths and basics of promotion and tenure, the attendees broke out into concurrent panel sessions focusing on different aspects of academic medicine: service, research and teaching. Panelists included: (service) Timothy Ness, M.D., Ph.D., professor in the Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine; Lauren Nassetta, M.D., assistant professor in the Department of Pediatrics; and Kierstin Kennedy, M.D., MSHA, clinical assistant professor in the Department of Medicine; (research) Jennifer Pollock, Ph.D., professor in the Department of Medicine; Christina Muzny, M.D., assistant professor in the Department of Medicine; Lucas Pozzo-Miller, Ph.D., professor in the Department of Neurobiology; Tiffany L. Carson, Ph.D., MPH, assistant professor in the Department of Medicine (teaching) Henry Wang, M.D., professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine; Nicholas Van Wagoner, M.D., Ph.D., assistant dean for Students and associate professor in the Department of Medicine; Ryan Kraemer, M.D., assistant professor in the Department of Medicine; and Michael D. Barnett, M.D., MS, assistant professor in the Departments of Pediatrics and Medicine.
Rogers said he and Merlin plan to offer the workshop to junior faculty annually. Rogers is also beginning the process of planning a similar workshop in the future aimed at senior-level faculty.
“We plan to review the outcomes of the workshop and will then develop a strategy for offering a similar program in future years,” Rogers said. “We would like to expand this to have similar workshops for other groups of faculty and will be evaluating those options as well. Our goal is to address the needs of the faculty members when they have taken the time to express them to us.”
March 14, 2017