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Office of Faculty Developmentpage

Department of PediatricsOffice of Faculty Development

Mission

Provide access to comprehensive career development resources for Pediatric Faculty to facilitate academic advancement and enhance career satisfaction.

Rationale

Faculty members are expected to progress through a series of milestones by which they build expertise and realize achievements that (1) enhance their development as physicians, scientists and educators; and (2)bring recognition to both Lurie Children’s Hospital and The Feinberg School of Medicine. These accomplishments lead to promotion within the Medical School faculty system that acknowledges excellence in the domains of clinical expertise, educational contributions, original research and health services management. Individual talent and effort alone may not besufficient to maximize growth and development and ensure success in this progression. The availability of essential resources, the ability to commit time to scholarly projects and establishing effective mentoring relationships are indispensible as well. In some instances, faculty members have an organized career plan, generally negotiated during their recruitment,that details both goals how institutional support will be support these goals. In the past, this approach has been offered almost exclusively to faculty with a large percentage of time dedicated to research, with a formal mentor and mentoring committee assigned. However, more than 75% of our current faculty spend at least 75% of their time on clinical activity and do not have systematized support for scholarly activities. For the most part, they are informally mentored by their Division Chief and other senior members within their Division. For some, this level of support and guidance is adequate to facilitate progress but this form of mentoring is inconsistent and difficult to coordinate.

Mentored relationships are at the heart of most academic systems, but these relationships are complex and require that primary responsibility for their success is shared equally between mentee and mentor. Whereas academic progress in research is supportedlargely by the individual’s research affiliations, the basis for mentorship of teaching, administrative and clinical excellence is less clear. Direction can be gleaned from seminars and tutorials that address issues key to these domains, which transcend individual sub-specialties. Mentoring relationships and objectives have historically been loosely defined, but current approaches are demonstrating the benefit of written plans to guide and to assure mutual understanding of the objectives to be achieved. Additionally, plans for individuals must include appropriate assessment and feedback.

Goal

The Office of Faculty Development (OFD) will provide an infrastructure to offer guidance, assisting faculty with their professional growth and progression through academic milestones. Resources for this program will be provided through the Department of Pediatrics and through complementary programs available from individual Divisions and through the Feinberg School of Medicine. In this way, the program will standardize the support that faculty members receive, establishing equal opportunities and meeting diverse needs. The program will also include real-time monitoring of faculty progress and provide feedback to faculty and their divisional leadership when concerns have been raised regarding the faculty member’s progress.

Approach

The Office will consist of a Director, three Co-directors in areas of career emphasis (see Personnel, below) and a Roster of Coaches with expertise regarding different career paths, the promotion process, organizing for academic productivity, etc. Importantly, these coaches will not serve as mentors who have frequent, close contact with faculty members, but rather as experts to counsel and direct faculty toward appropriate resources, including possible mentors.The office will include up to 1 aggregate faculty FTE and 0.5 FTE for administrative support.

With the establishment of this program, all junior faculty members (instructor and assistant professor rank), not just those engaged in research, must have one or more mentors identified within three months of joining the Faculty. The designation of this mentor(s), which can and should change based upon the needs and career emphasis of the mentee, will be tracked by the OFD. The development of innovative approaches such as group mentoring or peer mentoring will be encouraged. The mentor and mentee will be responsible[1] for a brief report, to be submitted in April of each year, approximately 6 months off of the cycle for the annual Faculty Self-Evaluation. Note that the designation of a mentor does not obviate the requirement for a Mentoring Committee for junior faculty members who have a majority of their effort protected for research activity and/or are appointed to a tenure-eligible position. In this case, the identified primary mentor will chair the mentoring committee.

New faculty members will meet with an OFD advisor after they have committed to joining the faculty but, ideally, before becoming active faculty members. At this meeting, they will be directed toward resources and initiate the process of finding a mentor. With the mentor, the mentee will be expected to develop a Career Advancement Plan (CAP). The CAP will be a part of the faculty member’s departmental file; it will describe goals and how it is anticipated that those goals will be achieved, and will be of critical importance in determining whether career progress is on course. The OFD will monitor the development of CAPs by the faculty and assist where appropriate.

Services Offered

In addition to this tracking function, the OFD will provide coaching to the mentees as needed.A Roster of Coaches, as distinguished from Mentors, will provide expert counsel to assist with specific questions or needs, and also offer a source of broad expertise that will complement the ongoing, more intensive activity of the faculty members’ Mentor(s). The administrator will serve as a primary service point-of-entry and be trained to help those seeking the service to navigate the system. The Office will provideconfidential counseling, or referral to more appropriate resources, as follows:

  1. Individual counseling regarding career development activities such as
  2. Promotion planning and application (individual portfolio review)
  3. Choices of research groups and projects
  4. Counseling or referral regarding issues of personal conflict that are not resolvable at the level of the Division (with deference to the central role of the Division Head)
  5. Time management/effort allocation decisions and concerns
  6. Post-graduate education and training resources in the University
  7. Life cycle-driven career issues, such as interruptions related to maternity/paternity and late-career planning
  8. Referral to resources outside of the Department for assistance with the above issues, such as the Faculty Affairs Office, the office of the Vice Dean for Academic Affairs or Lurie Children’s Hospital professional coaching services
  9. Career development seminars (coordinated by the Faculty Affairs Board)
  10. Required review of curricula vitae for all faculty members after three years of service.
  11. Optional review of curricula vitaefor style and readiness prior to their being submitted as part of a promotions packet (these must be submitted to the committee three weeks prior to the deadline for the Department APT Committee).
  12. Web-based resources through aneffective Faculty Development section of the Department web site, including
  13. Information regarding the OFD roles and ways in which it can provide support
  14. Links to additional resources
  15. Dates for important career development-related events
  16. Examples of successful promotion applications with explanations of why they were effective
  17. Faculty development FAQ page, oriented according to career domains
  18. Peer-to-peer review and mentoring opportunities
  19. Mentor consultation – confidential service as a sounding board for mentors seeking to work through issues with their mentees
  20. In addition to self-referral, the Department Chairman, the Division Head/Program Leader, the Mentor, the Department Research Study Section and other interested parties may refer the faculty member to the OFD.
  21. Specific feedback and advice to the chairmanif requested. [Note: We do not anticipate the OFD providingsystematic feedback to all faculty members, since such feedback should initiate with the Chairman and the Division Head; but will provideindividual feedback when specifically requested and when it does not violate confidentiality.]

Scope of OFD Counseling Activities

Members of the Office of Faculty Development will offer feedback to faculty members who consult them. Such advice is intended to assist the faculty member in achieving her or his career goals. Counselors will seek to provide individuals with tools to empower them to address potential issues directly with the leadership of their Divisions and Department. If that is not deemed possible, OFD will offer to facilitate appropriate discussions through direct participation and/or mediation. In all circumstances the OFD counselor will work with the Division Head and Chair to help the individual reconcile his or her goals with the institutional missions as determined by the Division Head and Chairman.

When counseling is requested to address issues of potential conflict, it will be considered confidential and exclusive to the requesting individual, except when professional or legal considerations mandate external consultation for the protection of the individual or institution, as provided for by institutional policies.

Relationships with Other Resources

Rick McGee, Ph.D, Associate Dean for Faculty Recruitment and Professional Development, Feinberg School of Medicine, has agreed to serve as an advisor for this program. Dr. McGee has developed several career development programs at the medicalschool level. This will benefit the OFD program both through his expertise in this area and because it will provide a link to other resources as they are developed throughout the medical school. These include support programs for promotion and tenure and the ongoing development of the programs for the Center for Medical Education. Some of the FSM development programs are shown in the diagram below.

Relationship Among Faculty Development Programs

FEINBERG SCHOOL OF MEDICINE

NUCATS FAO Dept of Pediatrics

MentorCollegeAPT Cmte PromoCoachingCtr for Med EdFABOFD

Develop-ofSeminars(McGee)F.A.M.E.

mentCoaches Augusta Webster Grants

Ed Resch Consultations

Assessment

There will be three distinct phases of measurement: Usability will be determined by follow-up meeting with two groups of faculty: the first 10 faculty members to contact the Office and the first 10 faculty members to be hired after the OFD is established. The groups will be asked at a meeting to comment on relevance of services, ease of access and response to needs. Feasibility of consultation activity will be monitored by tracking utilization of services and the type of services requested by the faculty over time; feasibility of monitoring will be evaluated by ease of documenting mentors and of pre-submission of promotion packets. Value will be measured by outcomes, to be determined by the Roster of Coaches after further discussion. Several possible metrics have been suggested, including repeat of the faculty survey conducted during the 2013 strategic assessment process.

Personnel

Personnel of the OFD would meet regularly (monthly with the possibility for modification of frequency as the program develops) to review its activities and discuss needs/issues

  • 0.5 FTE administrative person to answer phone calls, serve as a central referral point of service, track mentors, arrange rooms for and publicize seminars, etc. Ideally, this person would have experience in education or training and serve an advisory/counseling role as well.
  • 0.15 academic FTE Director (may be taken from current personnel such as Vice Chair)
  • Co-Directors for Clinical/Administration. Education, Research (0.05-0.10 FTE each)
  • Roster of Coaches (additional senior academicians with diverse expertise complementary to others in the leadership; 0.05 FTE each for those who do not already have significant Departmental roles). The size and composition of the roster will be determined by an assessment of the needs of, and the rate of utilization by, the faculty members.

Proposed OFD Personnel

Administrative person

Carlie Cody

Director

William Schnaper, MD

Co-Directors (Executive Committee)
  • Estella Alonso, MD
  • Tom Green, MD
  • Ann Harris, MD
Roster of Coaches

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Office of Faculty Developmentpage

  • Mark Adler, MD
  • Robert Greenberg, MD
  • Rick McGee, PhD
  • Jackie Pongracic, MD
  • Sandra Sanguino, MD
  • Paul Schumacker, PhD
  • Karen Sheehan, MD
  • Alexis Thompson, MD

OFDFunction

[1]Because obtaining effective mentoring is ultimately the responsibility of the mentee, an alternative might be to have such a report be the responsibility of the mentee. However, since feedback regarding the mentoring situation will be provided by the mentee at the time of the annual self-assessment, having the mentor provide this report might add a perspective to ongoing monitoring.