March 1, 2020

Message From the Chair: Updates on Faculty Development

The Department of Surgery will be offering several programs throughout the year to support faculty development.

At Michigan Surgery, through our Office of Faculty Life, we believe in relentless faculty development. To realize our vision of a department that leads in clinical care, research, education, and leadership, we must invest in the personal growth of each and every faculty member. However, each faculty member will have different needs as they craft their unique phenotype and trajectory. Thus, we offer a diverse array of faculty development programs in order to meet these needs. Listed below are the programs that will be running over the next year:

  • Faculty Exchange Program - designed to enable Assistant Professor level faculty in the Department of Surgery to travel to an “exchange” institution to present their research or clinical focus and to meet with experts or collaborators. We believe this exchange will give our faculty a chance to network and gain collaborators across institutions.
  • Directed Sabbatical - an opportunity for faculty to spend dedicated time toward developing their clinical, academic, or educational interests over an 8-week period. During this time, faculty are excused from clinical and administrative duties in order to provide time for immersion and deepening one’s knowledge and interests in the topic of their choice.
  • Coaching Academy - developed in response to faculty and resident expressed need for continued leadership development and building coaching skills as a leadership competency. The program includes a didactic curriculum of coaching skills, independent learning through reading and self-assessments, mentored practical coaching experience, and 1:1 individual coaching support.
  • Leadership Development Program - this year-long program is designed specifically for physicians to increase knowledge in areas traditionally not taught in medical school and develop the business acumen and people skills for leadership positions. Unlike the Master’s Classes that are running this year, which are a la carte, this program is a longitudinal cohort and requires commitment to attend all of the 8 sessions.
  • Michigan Mentorship Academy - This event is targeted toward mentor-mentee dyads, faculty development leaders interested in mentorship and increasing the success of mentees (this could also include program directors and departmental leaders), individual mentors looking to improve their mentorship capabilities, and junior people (residents, fellows, junior faculty) looking to get the most out of their mentoring relationships. The event will include a combination of lectures, panel discussions, question and answer sessions, small group discussions and role play. This year the program will run on Friday, September 25h from 8:00 am to 4:00 pm. Registration has not yet opened so look for this later this Spring and early Summer.

We view these programs as a journey in continuous quality improvement. We will modify, add, subtract and tailor these programs to ensure that our department’s faculty development needs are being met. While the deadline for applications for many of these has already passed for this Spring, please keep your eye out for the next cycle, as the programs repeat annually or every other year!

Justin B. Dimick, MD, MPH
Department of Surgery Chair
Frederick A. Coller Distinguished Professor of Surgery
Dr. Dimick

Justin B. Dimick, MD, MPH

Department of Surgery Chair
Frederick A. Coller Distinguished Professor of Surgery
Professor, Minimally Invasive Surgery