Surgery Faculty Professional Development Program
This year, the Department of Surgery initiated a professional development training program for all surgery faculty. The program, led by professor and executive vice chair, Fiemu Nwariaku, M.D., includes leadership training, mentorship and coaching, and career planning.
“We haven’t had a formalized mechanism to make our faculty successful,” Dr. Nwariaku explains.
Members of our faculty were asked to respond via survey about what the Department of Surgery could do to support them in their roles at UT Southwestern Medical Center, and the response was unanimous: the faculty wanted a structured path to success. In response, Dr. Nwariaku investigated other academic medical centers around the country and found that very few surgical departments have formal development programs in place, but he was inspired by The Michigan Promise, a program developed at the University of Michigan.
“This is part of the necessary culture change in our department,” says Dr. Nwariaku. “We need to recruit good people and support them. When you support them, they are more productive in their roles. We need a more diverse faculty, and we need to make diversity a conscious decision when it comes to recruitment.”
Our program is entirely faculty driven, and each part of it is based off the surveyed responses. The key to the program is to give members of the faculty the tools they need to succeed and support them on their career path, which led to the program’s tagline, “Empowering Excellence.”
The program launched in August and its lecture series is becoming an integral part of regular faculty meetings. In September, assistant vice president of the organization development and training office, Suzanne Farmer, Ph.D., gave a presentation on “Managing Relationships Using Your Communication Style.”
Upcoming lectures include topics such as emotional intelligence, burnout, change management, and unintentional bias.