Faculty Development

About the FM Faculty Development Program

Faculty development/faculty mentoring is under the direction of Dr. Alice Anne O'Donell. Each faculty member meets with his/her program directors on an annual basis and faculty development needs are identified. Faculty members then meet with Dr. O'Donell to review the faculty proposal. Plans that require additional time allocation are discussed with the leadership committee. The faculty's program director and the chairman make final approval.

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Challenges for Faculty Development

Mentoring. A formal mentoring system will be developed and implemented by the end of this academic year. The outdated Departmental APT guidelines will be rewritten. Scholarly activity will be defined for each faculty. Individual 3-5 year Faculty Development goals will be monitored and documented so that faculty accomplishments are recognized outside of the Family Medicine Department.

Faculty/Scholarly Activity. A clear priority identified by the faculty is more protected time for scholarly activities. The faculty have ideas for research and scholarly projects and are energized and motivated. The key factor identified over and over again is protected time. There is general consensus among the faculty that more faculty are needed to cover clinical and educational workload responsibilities in order to make this possible.

An integrally related issue is mentorship, which the university as a whole is struggling to adequately address. Our department has a significant component of young faculty at the Assistant Professor level who need varying levels of faculty development and mentorship. There is a small number of faculty in the department with the experience needed to mentor young faculty. This is another activity that requires and deserves protected time. Obtaining needed levels of mentorship may require that we seek inter-departmental collaboration.

Others outside the department have echoed the need for increased primary care research as a priority. In concert with increased activities, we need to increase the visibility of our research and scholarly efforts to others.