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Professional Development Sessions 

Our Division strongly believes in investing in each individual faculty member in order to help them grow as clinicians, educators, and scholars. Monthly sessions cover a range of topics from adult education theory to best practices in bedside rounding. We actively solicit input from our faculty to help guide content for future sessions.

Department of Medicine Grand Rounds

Once a week, members of the larger department of medicine gather to learn about a topic. Usually given by subspecialists, giving recent updates, and sharing new and/or personal research on the chosen topic.

Hospital Medicine Grand Rounds

Once a month, we ask hospitalists and subspecialists to give the division of hospital medicine a didactic on disease states commonly seen encountered in Hospital Medicine. One of the benefits of these sessions is that we can ask the presenters to address questions and/or issues that our division members would like to clarify.

Mentoring and Coaching

We offer a variety of ways to support faculty members to thrive as academic clinicians.

  • On boarding mentors: Assigned to new faculty members to help with transitioning into an efficient clinician as they move into a new healthcare system.
  • Career mentors: Interested faculty are paired with senior mentors that share similar interests. We encourage faculty to develop a mentoring team to address all their clinical, research, QI, educational, and other needs.
  • Coaching program: group coaching program with the option for one-on-one sessions discussing issues ranging from burnout, disparities, to other more project driven issues.

Peer Observation Program

Our Division embraces the principles of direct observation and timely feedback that underlie deliberate practice. All of the faculty actively participate in peer to peer observation in order to improve our clinical teaching. Faculty across our Division are paired up, observe each other during teaching rounds, and provide detailed feedback. This program is part of our Division’s strategy to build and maintain teaching excellence.

Journal Club

As educators, we have the responsibility to stay updated on recent developments in medical literature. Our Division embraces the opportunity to critically evaluate and discuss current articles with bi-monthly sessions that aid our physicians in improving their critical appraisal and presentation skills. The academic debates that have transpired from these sessions have created phenomenal intradepartmental social and professional networking opportunities all while meeting our continuing medical education requirements.

Projects in Progress

Projects in progress is an opportunity for faculty members to meet with colleagues to discuss current special projects that are in development. This monthly meeting enables our presenters to obtain productive feedback while keeping peers abreast of current Division areas of interest being developed.

APP Series

Advanced Practice Providers (APPs) are an integral part of our Division. They have their own professional development series, which meets twice a month. In most sessions, they go through a “morning report-style” case to develop clinical reasoning skills. Several times a year sessions are held with a more explicit focus on professional development, toward the goal of facilitating the growth of APPs into more independent practitioners.

Other Interest Groups

Section Meetings

Faculty meetings are held monthly for the University Hospital and VA Hospital sections and also for the General Medicine Clinic. These meetings enable the faculty to collaborate on specific practice issues, medical protocols, helpful information and planning topics in a collegial atmosphere.

Additionally, there are also monthly meetings with the same sections that include Hospital Administration, Nursing and Case Management members. This further enhances working relationships and improves communication for smooth teamwork.

Onboarding Process

We’ve attempted to create a comprehensive program that focuses on the needs of new faculty members, and includes:

  • Shadowing with hands on experience on various teams prior to starting with experienced faculty.
  • 2 “boot camp” style sessions during the first year, one during September focusing on logistic issues, and another in February focusing on educational issues.
  • Billing, coding and documentation resources.