Faculty Factory

This week on the Faculty Factory podcast we welcome Vicki Freeman, PhD, MASCP, MLS(ASCP)cm SCcm, FACB, for an exploration for staying professionally active alongside some common challenges to at least be aware of in retirement from full time faculty life.

Dr. Freeman is a professor emeritus and former tenured chair in the Utmb Department of Clinical Laboratory Sciences. She's also the former associate dean for faculty development for the School of Health Professions.

She was also a Distinguished Professor and a former Minnie Stephens Piper Professor. She was the director of the renowned UTMB Academy of Master Teachers among her many other contributions and positions held through her illustrious career in academic medicine.

Her decision to retire was influenced by family and the challenges posed by COVID-19. She doesn’t see retirement as an endpoint but as an opportunity to pivot toward rest and other meaningful activities. It also serves as a nice way to avoid some of the workplace politics she no longer is obligated to navigate.

“I’m just not interested in putting up with the politics anymore and when the politics start getting involved, I know it is time to check out,” she told us.

Learn more: http://facultyfactory.org/vicki-freeman 

The importance of the four R’s to keep top of mind as you navigate your leadership journey is presented by Joseph E. Losee, MD, MBA, FACS, FAAP, a beloved return guest, on the Faculty Factory Podcast this week.

Dr. Losee is Vice Dean for Faculty Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, the Dr. Ross H. Musgrave Endowed Chair in Pediatric Plastic Surgery, a Professor and Executive Vice Chair of the Department of Plastic Surgery, and a Professor of Business Administration at Katz Graduate School of Business.

You can revisit his other episodes with us here:

You can also see slides from his “Four R’s of Leadership” presentation here. [pdf]

As discussed, leaders are often hired for their IQ but get fired for a lack of emotional intelligence (EQ). The good news? EQ can be learned, exercised, and grown.

The four R’s or leadership are as follows:

Recommended readings from this episode include Executive Presence 2.0 by Sylvia Ann Hewlett. How you act, speak, and appear—all matter as a leader, according to this literature, which Dr. Losee mentioned in the opening moments of the podcast.

He also referenced the TEDx Talk "Let's Face It: Charisma Matters" by John Antonakis, which you can view here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEDvD1IICfE

“Charisma matters and it can be taught and learned,” as Dr. Losee told us.

Other books and resources mentioned include:

Conflict, stressors, broaching difficult conversations, and learning to say no—these are some of the “spookiest” challenges we've identified and addressed over the years on the Faculty Factory Podcast.

Since our 2019 inception, we've explored how to handle these issues with confidence and grace, featuring a series of incredible interview guests. We’re excited to share highlights from five of these conversations with four different guests in this week’s episode.

Since today is October 31st, we're delighted to present this “Best Of” episode of the Faculty Factory Podcast, showcasing some of the  most “spooky” challenges in academic medicine.

These may be the things keeping you up at night, but rest assured, they are common and manageable. This “Best of” show includes highlights from the following episodes:

Interested in hearing the full conversations from any of these episodes? Click on the links above to explore each episode in-depth.

About Today’s Speakers

Jessica Seaman, EdD, serves as Assistant Professor of Medical Humanities, Co-Director of the Gold Track Curriculum, and Assistant Dean of Faculty Development at Creighton University School of Medicine in Phoenix, Arizona.

Jennifer Haythornthwaite, PhD, has joined the Faculty Factory for memorable episodes over the years with important feedback for our audience when it comes to time management and much more. Dr. Haythornthwaite is a professor in the department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Md

Charles G. Irvin, PhD, DE, ATSF, FERS, is a Professor of Medicine, Professor of Physiology and Biophysics, Vice Chairman for Research Department of Medicine and Director of the Vermont Lung Center at the University of Vermont. He was named Associate Dean for Faculty for the College of Medicine in 2012.

Dave Yousem, MD, MBA, is a frequent contributor to the Faculty Factory Podcast. He serves as Associate Dean for Professional Development at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. He is also the Vice Chairman of Program Development at the Johns Hopkins Medical Institution.

Equipped with a conviction that all of us are leaders in academic medicine, Judy Tung, MD, joins the Faculty Factory Podcast this week to discuss leadership development and so much more.

Dr. Tung serves as an Associate Professor of Clinical Medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City. She is also the Associate Dean of Faculty Development at the School of Medicine.

You can see the two articles referenced in this interview here:

Learn more: https://facultyfactory.org/judy-tung 

Lekshmi Santhosh, MD, MAEd, an innovative leader in medicine, joins our Faculty Factory Podcast this week to discuss building an array of mentors, each playing a different role in your life and career journey in academic medicine.

She also encourages us to challenge conventional definitions of mentoring throughout this conversation. The concept of matrix mentorship invites us to explore the metaphor of a “bouquet of mentors,” which is a central theme of the interview.

At the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), Dr. Santhosh is an Associate Professor of Pulmonary/Critical Care Medicine and Hospital Medicine. She serves as the Department of Medicine’s Associate Chair for Mentorship and People Development and is the Associate Program Director for the internal medicine residency program at UCSF. She also holds the title of Gold-headed Cane Endowed Education Chair in Internal Medicine.

Her passion for mentoring trainees, early-career faculty, and peers shines throughout this discussion.

“Just knowing that one mentor is not going to be able to meet all your needs is really important,” Dr. Santhosh emphasizes.

Thank you to a dear friend of the Faculty Factory, Joshua Hartzell, MD, MS-HPEd, FACP, FIDSA, for recommending Dr. Santhosh as a guest on our show. It was a very memorable and special debut on the Faculty Factory Podcast for her.

With mergers and acquisitions (M&As) potentially reshaping the landscape of academic medicine, we are honored to welcome Elza Mylona, PhD, MBA, to this week’s episode of the Faculty Factory Podcast to explore this emerging trend.

Dr. Mylona is the Senior Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs and Faculty Development and also serves as a Professor of Foundational Sciences at Methodist University Cape Fear Valley Health School of Medicine in Fayetteville, North Carolina.

In this timely discussion about a topic that impacts everyone the institution undergoing a merger or acquisition touches, we examine the economic and demographic pressures driving many of the M&As in academic medicine and beyond.

Learn More: https://facultyfactory.org/ 

Carla L. Spagnoletti, MD, MS, has some promotion portfolio gems of wisdom for our listeners in her return to the Faculty Factory Podcast this week.

At 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.

As discussed in this interview, there are many reasons why clinical faculty should seek promotion. However, clinical faculty often climb the ranks more slowly than their research counterparts.

While Dr. Spagnoletti concedes that this is probably due to multiple factors—such as rigorous and competing clinical duties, a lack of understanding of the process, and not always seeing tangible incentives for pursuing promotion—it became clear that something needed to be done.

Therefore, Dr. Spagnoletti set out to help faculty overcome the final hurdle in promotion: building a promotion dossier or portfolio. She helped form a supportive group to assist faculty in submitting and building this portfolio so they can initiate the promotion process.

At her institution, this group is called the Promotion Portfolio Club (PPC). As a true clinician-educator, she designed it as a curriculum based on a few core theories commonly used in medical education.

“One of the participants in a recent club told us, ‘I'm eternally grateful, as I can only imagine this task would have been incredibly daunting had I gone it alone,’ and that really captures the main reason why we started this project,” she said.

Learn more: https://facultyfactory.org/ 

We are honored to have Farzana Hoque, MD, MRCP, FACP, FRCP, return to the Faculty Factory Podcast this week. This is her third appearance on the podcast, and this time she joins us to discuss her recently published article in the Journal of Brown Hospital Medicine entitled “WISE Framework: Teaching Guide for Early Career Hospitalists.”

The article is based on the WISE Framework, which she formulated and discusses in depth during today’s chat. As she notes at the start of the interview, it is applicable to all specialties, not just hospitalists.

She currently serves as an Associate Professor of Internal Medicine in the Division of Hospital Medicine at Saint Louis University School of Medicine. She also co-directs the Medicine Sub-Internship at the Saint Louis University School of Medicine. Additionally, she is the Medical Director of Bordley Tower at SSM Health Saint Louis University Hospital.

Dr. Hoque’s previous two interviews with the Faculty Factory can be found here:

“After several days of thinking, I came up with this WISE framework. W stands for Watchful Observation; I for Insightful Awareness; S for Specific Feedback; and E for Empathic Communication,” she told us.

Read Dr. Hoque’s recent article in the Journal of Brown Hospital Medicine entitled “WISE Framework: Teaching Guide for Early Career Hospitalists”: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40191700/.

You can follow along with her guidance and clinical tips for residents and fellows, and much more by subscribing to her YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Dr.FarzanaHoque.

For W. Neil Duggar, PhD, DABR, everything on his path to leadership in academic medicine started with fully understanding his own “why.”

That process of understanding your purpose, who you are, and how that dictates what success will look like, and whether you are making progress, is a central theme within today’s broader leadership discussion. 

Dr. Duggar currently serves as an Associate Professor and Director of Medical Physics in the Department of Radiation Oncology at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson. 

Learning to lead without formal authority is important in our field because, as Dr. Duggar puts it, “most of us don’t have authority or a title most of our careers, if we ever do get one, so learning to lead without authority becomes a very powerful combination of skills.” 

Embracing feedback and constructive criticism about yourself is vital to this discussion because, without this journey to self-awareness, it’s very easy for leaders to fall into the trap of “your own legend.” 

“You can start believing your opinion and feedback are most important, but the reality is that there will always be voices you need to listen to outside of your own,” he said. 

We thank Dr. Duggar for reaching out to us via the Faculty Factory inbox and requesting to be a guest on this show! If you have something to share within your corner of the academic medicine world as a guest, please send us a message: https://facultyfactory.org/contact-us/   

After you listen to Dr. Duggar’s interview, for more fantastic podcast episodes, please check out our show’s archives: https://facultyfactory.org/podcast-topics/

Oscar W. “Skip” Brown, MD, is our guest this week on the Faculty Factory Podcast. He lays out the keys to building a fulfilling retirement and acknowledges the severe consequences of simply “doing nothing” with the windfall of time on your hands.

As a clinical professor of pediatrics with UTMB in Galveston, Texas, Dr. Brown has accumulated numerous accolades over his illustrious career. He is the immediate past vice chair for clinical affairs and former chief medical officer at UTMB. As a past president of the Texas Pediatric Society (TPS), he is a recipient of the TPS Charles W. Daeschner, Jr. Lifetime Achievement Award, for his contributions to the health and welfare of the children of Texas.

He joined us to map out some serious considerations we should all keep in mind as we approach the twilight stages of our full-time careers.

"You've got to have a plan for what you're going to do with yourself with all the time you're about to create. And it is very bad for you—very bad for you, emphasized with giant capital letters—to just have time," Dr. Brown stressed.

Questions? You can contact him via email here to learn more: [email protected], and you can visit the Faculty Factory website for more resources: https://facultyfactory.org/.