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February 2011, Issue 10 |
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A Message from the Chair
Calling all DFCM Lecturers: Are you ready for promotion? As family physicians, we are committed to the health of our patients. As academic family physicians we are committed to the discipline of Family Medicine through teaching, learning, research, administrative service or creative professional activity. As a Department we are committed to leadership and excellence in everything we do. Yet as individuals we can be shy about sharing our accomplishments or passing on what we’ve learned in years of practice and in our academic activities. We hesitate (or groan) at the thought of updating our CVs, organizing an academic dossier or creating a professional development plan. And when we finally get down it, suddenly there are many more interesting things to do. I acknowledge that the Department needs to open doors and minds to encourage our talented, accomplished lecturers to apply for promotion to assistant professor. Your academic colleagues know that you are doing the work and achieving the results that would move you up the ranks. Academic recognition comes through your professorial rank and academic institutions recognize success through promotion. While professorial rank is the mark of academic success from the institution’s point of view; faculty members have told me that the individual achievement of attaining a promotion is the more gratifying experience. For many, recognizing yourself as an academic is a gradual process; one that happens as your contributions became evident to you and to those around you. It is an individual choice to seek academic recognition through a promotion. Those who have taken the step have done so for a variety of reasons: personal satisfaction; more and better academic opportunities to choose from; the recognition of their work to date; or to start them on the path to further academic recognition. The discipline of Family Medicine, to which our Department is committed, needs our faculty members to seek promotion. Our status as a Department partly rests on the number of DFCM faculty at senior ranks. With more faculty members at senior ranks we can continue to achieve and sustain greater academic prominence within our own Faculty of Medicine and among other academic institutions. In this way, our current academic success will be amplified as it continues to positively influence the discipline of Family Medicine in Canada and internationally. The DFCM is working hard to create a culture of academic leadership and we have supports in place for our lecturers to help them focus on career advancement. On March 3, the Beyond the Basics workshop is focused on faculty career development. On April 15-16 the Faculty Retreat and Walter Rosser Day will focus on educational transformations; providing faculty the chance to explore and discuss some of the major changes coming around the teaching work we do. Each of these events provides a chance to satisfy your curiosity and seek opportunities to become more deeply involved in academic activities. Another way to get involved in academic activity is through the Quality Improvement (QI) Program. You can begin to participate and train in quality improvement initiatives at any time. Part of the QI Program’s mandate is to provide faculty with opportunities for academic, leadership and interprofessional activity, all of which are part of the scholarly requirements for promotion. To be promoted to Assistant Professor you must demonstrate sustained involvement in work demonstrating that you have contributed to important teaching or other academic work that has an impact within your unit, the DFCM and the University. The administrative assistant at your site can help you with the promotion process. They have a copy of the policies and procedures manual for faculty promotions and our website also has a comprehensive set of information. Lecturers, please consider getting your fantastic academic work recognized. Leadership starts here. Related links: |
