Faculty Development Vice Chair's Message
One of the goals of the Department of Anesthesiology is to help all faculty achieve successful careers as measured by their own individual standards as well as the standards of the School of Medicine. In a period of increasing clinical demands, the Department finds it important that there be a coordinated support system to help faculty achieve career goals. Therefore, a faculty academic mentoring program for the Department of Anesthesiology was instituted. This program does not supplant the role of the Departmental Chair or Division Chief, nor does it assume their responsibility. Instead, this program will make existing efforts better and more understandable to the faculty.
This academic mentoring program will primarily focus on faculty in their first 5-10 years in the Department, though it will be open to any faculty member who asks for assistance. The goals of the career development program will be:
- Help faculty establish their own individual goals for career success.
- Provide a regular and effective means of monitoring individual career plans with encouragement and suggestions on how to achieve goals.
- Help individuals develop and modify their career aspirations as they mature through the developmental stages and/or change their individual goals.
- Provide a clearing house for information related to appointment, promotion and tenure in the Department as well as the SOM.
The structure of the mentoring program will have two principle components. The first is the existing structure of the Department; the Chair and Division Chiefs who will insure newly recruited faculty have career goals that are consistent with the expectations of the Department and respective Division. The second will be the Mentoring Committee which will meet every three months, review individual faculty development and overall departmental strategies, and whose members will meet individually with faculty to help guide them in career development. This group will modify the departmental web-site for career development, with information about promotion and tenure, resources for academic activities, and institutional links.
The process of this program will be continually evaluated using a feedback form the Departmental Chair, the members of the Committee as well as the individual faculty members who are being mentored.