Our fantastic guest, Gulshan Sharma, MD, MPH, discusses key elements of leadership, such as teambuilding, applied knowledge (or intelligence), situational awareness, authenticity, and the role of brain chemistry, this week on the Faculty Factory Podcast.

Dr. Sharma is the Senior Vice President and Chief Medical & Clinical Innovation Officer at UTMB Health in Galveston. He also serves as a Professor in the Division of Pulmonary Critical Care & Sleep Medicine within the Department of Internal Medicine at UTMB.

“What leadership should bring is a vision for the organization and a main thing for a leader is to manage and de-escalate crisis,” Dr. Sharma told us.

Since leadership is personal, coaching becomes vital for leaders because it helps individuals build self-awareness. Additionally, dedicating time to clearing your mind is important, as an uncluttered thought process is essential for personalized leadership.

“Leaders should lead; they should not be doing tasks. If leaders start doing, it invites trouble,” Dr. Sharma states.

Remembering why you first entered the wonderful and challenging world of academic medicine might be just the boost of joy you need to stave off burnout.

Our guest this week on the Faculty Factory Podcast is Geeta Singhal, MD, MEd, FAAP, whom we warmly welcome for her first-ever (and very memorable) appearance on our program.

She does a brilliant job painting a picture for us of ways to uncover joy amidst the challenges of patient care, teaching, research, and many other rich, rewarding, and difficult tasks of the academic medicine journey.

Dr. Singhal currently serves as Executive Vice Chair of the Department of Pediatrics, Professor of Pediatrics, Director of Academics in the Division of Pediatric Hospital Medicine, Attending Physician, and Co-Director of Pediatric Hospital Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine (BCM).

She is also a Faculty Leadership Development Program Partner at BCM and a Professionalism Partner at Texas Children's Hospital. 

Learn more: http://facultyfactory.org/Geeta-Singhal 

Daniel Almeida, PhD, also known as the “Strengths Professor,” visits us this week on the Faculty Factory Podcast.

Dr. Almeida is an Associate Professor in the School of Education at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, California. As mentioned throughout this interview, he works diligently to incorporate Clifton Strengths into his teaching, coaching, and research.

Learn More: https://facultyfactory.org/daniel-almeida 

This week's episode of the Faculty Factory Podcast features a rebroadcast of "Rethinking Success in Academic Medicine," a webinar that was co-presented by Heather Brod and Kimberly Skarupski, PhD, MPH in May 2025.

This broadcast has been edited and shortened to enhance the podcast listening experience.

Learn more:  https://facultyfactory.org/rethink-success/

For more visuals, you can watch the video version on YouTube: https://youtu.be/oClCmjhs1V4

You can also access handouts that accompany the session:

The vital role of the humanities in shaping empathetic communication skills and critical-minded healthcare professionals is explored today with our guest, P. Ravi Shankar, MBBS, MD.

Dr. Shankar, MBBS, MD, currently serves as faculty and program coordinator at the IMU Centre for Education in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He is a Foundation for Advancement of International Medical Education and Research (FAIMER) Institutes Scholar and a prolific researcher.

Read more: http://facultyfactory.org/ravi-shankar 

The Faculty Factory podcast is back this week with a deep exploration of academic promotions for clinicians as we interview Anne Walling, MB, ChB, who has written extensively about the topic. Her writings are based on her years of practical on-the-job experience with faculty.

Dr. Walling is a professor emerita at the University of Kansas School of Medicine-Wichita in Wichita, Kansas and is the author of Academic Promotion for Clinicians: A Practical Guide to Promotion and Tenure in Medical Schools.

She joins our show this week as a first-time guest to discuss the second edition of this book, along with exploring a variety of aspects related to promotions in academic medicine from many different angles.

You can learn more about her book here: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-84036-4

The five keys that will lead you toward a successful clinical education career are outlined in-depth this week on the Faculty Factory Podcast, featuring our first-time guest, the amazing and encouraging Carla L. Spagnoletti, MD, MS.

With the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Dr. Spagnoletti serves as Professor of Medicine and holds the George H. Taber Endowed Chair in General Internal Medicine. In addition, she is the Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs, the Associate Division Chief for Education in GIM, and the Associate Director of the Masters and Certificate Programs in Medical Education within the Institute for Clinical Research Education.

The five tips that Dr. Spagnoletti encourages us to employ for building a successful clinical education career are as follows:

Make sure to tune into today's episode for a deep dive on each of the five tips. You will also learn the story of how Dr. Spagnoletti's unique career journey led her to this wisdom.

Today’s episode of the Faculty Factory Podcast explores strategies for embracing a new career challenge or retirement itself. This broadcast features a recording from a recent lecture led by Faculty Factory Podcast host Kimberly Skarupski, PhD, MPH.

Dr. Skarupski is Associate Vice Provost, Leadership Development, in the Office of Faculty Affairs with UTMB Health in Galveston, Texas. She is a tenured Professor in the Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Geriatrics in the John Sealy School of Medicine and in the Department of Epidemiology in the School of Public and Population Health.

If you'd like to see the slides from the lecture that this podcast is based on, you can access them here.

More Faculty Factory Resources: https://facultyfactory.org/ 

We’re honored to have Janet Bickel, MA, join the Faculty Factory Podcast for the third time in our show’s history this week. We’re discussing the art of adaptability and how to hone it as a skill set to build a successful career in academic medicine.

Janet is an acclaimed leadership and career development coach with more than five decades of experience in academic medicine and science. She started her academic career with Brown University’s Medical School (now called The Warren Alpert Medical School) in 1972.

Resources to Explore

Academic Medicine Letter to the Editor: “Helping Medical Education Faculty Navigate a Post-Academic Landing Pad”: https://journals.lww.com/academicmedicine/citation/9900/helping_medical_education_faculty_navigate_a.1175.aspx

Janet Bickel’s Official Website: https://janetbickel.com/

Equip Your Inner Coach: Personal, Career and Leadership Development in an Uncertain Age: https://www.amazon.com/Equip-Your-Inner-Coach-Development/dp/B0BLFSRKG1

We're Put Here to Love: A Memoir with Poems: https://www.amazon.com/Were-Put-Here-Love-Memoir/dp/B0DDTK7NHM

Immunity to Change: How to Overcome It and Unlock the Potential in Yourself and Your Organization (Leadership for the Common Good): https://www.amazon.com/Immunity-Change-Potential-Organization-Leadership/dp/1422117367

More Janet Bickel Interviews

As mentioned above, this is Janet’s third appearance on our podcast. You can revisit her first time joining us back in June 2019, when she shared with us 7 Crucial Books and Resources for Faculty Affairs Professionals. In March 2022, she joined us once again for a reunion episode, where we caught up with her to discuss what’s new in her world of leadership and career development coaching since we last spoke. 

Patrick Louchouarn, PhD, is our inspiring guest on the Faculty Factory Podcast this week.

And speaking of inspiration, as discussed in this rich conversation, faculty members in general truly inspire Dr. Louchouarn with their creativity, engagement, and commitment to their profession.

In fact, those who chose the path of academic health are particularly compelling to Dr. Louchouarn because much of their work is rooted in the fundamental question: “How can I improve health for others—individuals, communities, or through specific procedures like surgeries or prosthetics?”

This mindset is quite extraordinary, and according to Dr. Louchouarn, it embodies maximum altruism. The one thing to be extra cautious about is that if we don’t start conversations about purpose and core values, a disconnect may occur.

The further we stray from the original motivation—the story of why someone chose to enter this particular health field—the greater that disconnect becomes, as discussed in this interview.

With The Ohio State University in Columbus, he is a Leadership & Performance Coach and serves as Senior Vice Provost for Faculty within the Office of Academic Affairs. Additionally, he serves as a Professor in the School of Earth Sciences and is an affiliated faculty member with the Ohio State Sustainability Institute.

Learn more: https://facultyfactory.org/ 

Further Reading

What Got You Here Won't Get You There, book by Marshall Goldsmith

The Prepared Leader: Emerge from Any Crisis More Resilient Than Before, book by Erika James and Lynn Perry Wooten