Our program was awarded the 2000 AAMC Women in Medicine Leadership Development Award. Janet Bickel (left) is shown presenting the plaque to Karen Sanders, MD, Carol Hampton, MMS and H. H. "Dickie" Newsome, Jr., MD, Dean of the School of Medicine.
See Dr. Newsome's nomination letter (below), AAMC President Jordan Cohen's letter announcing the award, and VCU President Eugene Trani's letter of congratulation.
Letter of Nomination from H. H. Newsome, Jr., M.D., Dean, School of Medicine, VCU:
August 14, 2000
Renee Marshall Lawson
Administrative Assistant
Association of American Medical Colleges
2450 N Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20037
Dear Ms. Lawson:
It gives me great
pleasure to nominate the Virginia Commonwealth University School
of Medicine Women in Medicine Program for the Association of American
Medical Colleges' 2000 Women in Medicine Leadership Development
Award. The women leaders of the WIM Program have shown energy, creativity,
and persistence in developing and achieving their strategic and
operational goals, all the while improving the climate for both
women and men in our institution. They have enjoyed widespread grassroots
support and developed a credible and forceful organizational presence.
In addition, they have spread their influence regionally and nationally
through a series of excellent and highly regarded conferences, and
have published both resource materials and academic articles in
the field. Their successes both locally and nationally have earned
them this honor.
The Pathways to
Leadership Conference, now in planning for its ninth year, is
well known around the country. It has established a track record
of success in reaching women health professionals across the country,
especially on the East Coast. The number of participants is regularly
about 250 and many participants are repeat attendees. The conference
has explicitly tried to touch many types of participants, such as
academic women physicians and scientists, but also community practitioners,
housestaff, medical students, and allied health professionals. The
conference series began back in 1992 at the genesis of the Women
in Medicine Faculty Organization. The conference series took shape,
and the first Pathways to Leadership Conference took place in 1993.
It was a small event, with mainly local faculty attending. However,
the conference planners, who were also the Women in Medicine Faculty
Organization officers, were already planning more ambitious activities.
They invited both the University of Virginia and Eastern Virginia
Medical School to join as conference sponsors. The University of
Virginia joined as a participant in 1997, and the Eastern Virginia
Medical School joined for the 1998 conference. Also in 1998, our
women leaders contacted and invited the participation of both the
Medical Society of Virginia and the Richmond Academy of Medicine.
A wonderfully-opinionated group made up of members from all these
sponsoring organizations has planned all conferences since that
time.
Substantial grants
($5000) from each educational institution and significant contributions
from the other sponsors (RAM and MSV) now underwrite the conferences.
Thus, the conference is now able to attract nationally recognized
speakers while still keeping registration subsidized for medical
students and housestaff. Conference attendees have grown from approximately
50 in 1993 to over 250 participants at the conference in March 2000.
Enclosed are the brochures from all of the conferences beginning
in March 1993 up to and including the most recent one conducted
this year, March 3, 2000. In addition, the next conference, to be
held on March 2, 2001, is already in the planning stages, and a
nationally known keynote speaker, Dr. Bernice Sandler, is already
booked. I personally have attended the last three of these conferences,
and have been amazed at the excitement and interaction that they
have generated.
The VCU School of
Medicine group has also instituted a Women in Medicine Professional
Leadership Award, now in its ninth year. Nominations for the award
are solicited from the Department Chairs of the School of Medicine
and all faculty members. Eight women physicians have been the award
recipients, recognized for their excellence in multiple professional
domains, character, leadership, and their groundbreaking activities
for the women who have followed them into medical careers. The University
of Virginia Medical School and Eastern Virginia Medical School have
emulated this awards process. All three medical school awards are
now given out at lunch during the Pathways to Leadership Conference.
Our Women in Medicine
program here at VCU is composed of four distinct parts, each of
which serves a specific purpose, and has been effective in pursing
distinct, although related goals.
1. Women in Medicine Faculty Organization
First, the Women
in Medicine Faculty Organization was organized into a coherent structure
in late 1992. The organization was structured as a volunteer organization
in order to be collaborative with, but outside of the organizational
structure of the medical school. This gave the organization more
latitude in creating a political agenda. The Faculty Organization
developed bylaws, a nominations and voting process, and a process
to have effective leadership succession. Many offices were created
and several subcommittees of the Executive Council were formed.
This structure has withstood the test of time, and has flourished
through the terms of four presidents: Dr. Wendy Klein (1992-1994),
Dr. Dawn Mueller (1994-1996), Dr. Karen Sanders (1996-1998), and
Dr. Lenore Buckley (1998-2000). A new president, Dr. Joanne Bodurtha,
is set to begin her two-year term in September of 2000, and a new
president-elect, Dr. Marcia Carney, will also begin.
Some WIM Faculty Organization activities
include:
Executive Council. The
Executive Council has met monthly for approximately nine years.
This group collects and prioritizes goals for the organization,
plans and directs activities, and collaborates with other external
and internal entities such as the Richmond Academy of Medicine.
Composed of a diverse collection of basic scientists, clinicians,
and administrators, the group is the driving force behind the success
of the organization. The President of the organization chairs the
Executive Council.
Executive
Leadership and Academic Medicine Program for Women (ELAM).
The organization has requested and received support for three
ELAM fellows: Dr. Roberta Sonnino, Dr. Lisa Kaplowitz, and Dr. Mary
Nettleman. The Women in Medicine Faculty Organization officers garnered
the support and funding commitment for ELAM from my office.
Women
in Medicine Faculty Organization Newsletter.
The newsletter has been published continuously although irregularly
for nine years. The newsletters have columns for education (promotion
and tenure guidelines, for example), professional development information
(AAMC Junior and Senior Women in Medicine Conference Announcements),
book reviews, and interviews with selected women faculty. Several
issues are enclosed.
Professional
Development Seminars and Lectures. Special interest programs
are organized several times a year. Many seminars have been held
about promotion and tenure issues, such as understanding the promotion
and tenure guidelines, understanding the different promotion tracks,
and creating a teaching portfolio. Other topics include mentoring
and career development. Speakers include both local and national
experts, such as Dr. Lindsay Grossman (fall 1999), Dr. Clyde Evans
(fall 1998), and Dr. Page Morahan (fall 1997).
Enclosed are several
examples of our local programming with participant evaluation summaries.
These programs serve
a critical function of getting the word out about key institutional
issues. Several sessions were held about promotion and tenure issues.
These sessions, although planned as one-way educational sessions,
were vehicles for raising issues, and letting faculty opinions be
known. This in turn helped raise institutional awareness of these
very important issues and facilitated the rewriting of some key
clauses in our School of Medicine Promotion and Tenure documents.
The Committee on the Status of
Women and Minorities
The second component
of our Women in Medicine Program is the School of Medicine Committee
on the Status of Women and Minorities. This Committee reports organizationally
to my office and focuses on providing leadership and guidance regarding
the progress of women and minorities in their achievement of their
full potential within the School of Medicine. The Committee assesses
and reports on various institutional issues, such as the representation
of women in departments and in leadership roles, recruitment and
retention of women and minority faculty, promotion and tenure issues,
salary equity and benefits, mentoring and faculty development, and
many others. Issues that arise through the committee structure may
flow to the Dean's Office, the Faculty Senate, University Council,
MCV Physicians group, or other higher level offices. The Committee
regularly engages in literature review, fact-finding, and benchmarking.
This Committee spearheaded the faculty survey in 1997 to determine
high-priority issues for career development. The survey, reported
in two published journal articles, had an excellent response rate
(62% response from 918 faculty), and pointed the way to several
sub-committees and high-priority issues. The faculty survey will
be the focus of a workshop at the October 2000 AAMC meeting, given
by Dr. Lenore Buckley, Dr. Karen Sanders and Ms. Carol Hampton.
Other products to come from the survey include the Mentoring
Guide, which is now available nationally on the web. The Committee
has most recently turned its attention to professionalism, space
and facilities issues, chair recruitment, and minority student and
faculty recruitment and retention.
School
of Medicine 1997 Faculty Survey on Needs for Career Development
and Mentoring - This
was a project of the Committee with leadership by Dr. Surinder Kallar,
former chair of the Committee, Dr. Lenore Buckley, now President
of our Women in Medicine Faculty Organization, and Carol Hampton,
Associate Dean for Faculty and Instructional Development. The results
of the survey underscored the need for mentoring and resources for
career development. The results were presented to chairs and distributed
to all faculties. As part of scholarship and to share the data with
others, the results also were published:
- Buckley, LM, Sanders, K, Shih,
M, Kallar, S, Hampton C for the Committee on the Status of Women
and Minorities. Obstacles to promotion? Values of women faculty
and career success and recognition. Academic Medicine. 2000; 75:
283-288.
- Buckley, LM, Sanders, K, Shih, M, Hampton, CL. Attitudes of
clinical faculty about career progress, career success and recognition,
and commitment to academic medicine: results of a survey. Archives
of Internal Medicine. In press, scheduled to appear September
2000.
Monitoring
Representation of Women and Minorities. The
Committee requested five-year data from the Dean's Office in order
to monitor representation of women and minorities in all 26 SOM
departments, and then compared these with national data from AAMC.
These data were presented to the chairs during the Dean's Executive
Council in January 2000. These data will be collected annually and
shared with the Department Chairs and other institutional leaders
in an effort to raise awareness of diversity and its importance.
Salary
Equity. In the 1997 faculty
survey, concerns were raised about salary equity. The Committee
requested an analysis of salary across all departments and ranks
from my office. I am personally monitoring these data and reported
the results last fall to the Committee. Although this is a sensitive
and difficult task, I have pledged to continue to monitor these
data, and share discrepancies with the chairs as part of their own
performance evaluations.
Mentoring
Program in the Department of Internal Medicine.
Using data from the faculty survey documenting the need for mentoring,
especially for women faculty, several key faculty members have initiated
a discussion of mentoring within the Department of Internal Medicine.
The chair, Dr. Richard Wenzel, with assistance from Ms. Chequeta
Allen, administrator, implemented a mentoring program in FY 1999-2000.
A corner stone for this new program requires each division chair
to arrange a mentor for every junior faculty member in the division.
This responsibility will be included and evaluated as part of the
annual performance review of each division chair in the Department
of Internal Medicine. This pilot project has been shared with all
Department Chairs as a possible sample for their own mentoring efforts.
Professionalism
Proposal. This proposal
was developed in response to medical student graduation survey data
and LCME self study data. This proposal, still in draft form, outlines
a structure and tasks to look at both curricular and institutional
issues surrounding professionalism. The chair has been identified
and the university attorney has given the green light to go forward.
With guidance from the Committee, I will appoint a Professionalism
Task Force to begin work this fall.
Minority
Recruitment and Retention.
This sub-committee is developing a minority student and faculty
recruitment and retention plan. A rising M3 medical student, an
African American, was hired over the summer by our Office of Faculty
and Instructional Development (OFID) to assist with a special project.
She has performed a search of the literature and has interviewed
11 of our 33 African American faculty members. She will draw conclusions
about the environment for African-American faculties, and assist
with drawing recommendations for recruitment and retention. She
will present her report to the Committee in September.
Chair Recruitment.
With staff support from OFID, the Committee
has begun to review guidelines and procedures for chair recruitment.
Resources from the literature and from other medical schools will
be sought out. A subcommittee will be assigned this fall to develop
guidelines for my consideration. The goal is to standardize and
systematize the chair recruitment process in order to optimize our
chances of hiring qualified women and minority candidates. This
will better assure outstanding and diverse leadership in these key
chair positions.
3. Women in Medicine Student Organization
The third part of the WIM Program is the Student
Organization. For eight years, each medical student class has elected
student representatives to the WIM Faculty Organization Executive
Council. These representatives have taken part in the annual "Become
a Doctor Day," first for the Girl Scouts, and more recently
working with the Virginia Area Health Education Consortia (AHECs)
to host 50 rural high school girls as guests on our MCV Campus.
The students have also sponsored monthly pizza luncheons on topics
pertinent to both male and female medical students. Student activity
fees and gifts from the SOM Annual Fund provide underwriting for
the luncheons. A formalized faculty/student-mentoring program has
just begun, initiated last fall by M2 female students and sponsored
jointly with the WIM Faculty Organization. Interests vary with the
student leadership each year. In previous years, they have written
their own website, and have risen to assume leadership positions
in AMSA, the American Medical Student Association.
4. Office of Faculty and Instructional Development
The VCU School of Medicine established the Office
of Faculty and Instructional Development (OFID) in October 1994.
The office incorporates faculty development, women in medicine,
instructional design, the Computer Based Instruction Lab, and telemedicine.
Carol Hampton is the Associate Dean appointed to lead the various
programs. The goal of faculty development is to assist faculty in
becoming accomplished, productive, and successful in their chosen
endeavors of teaching, research, patient care, or administration,
and in sustaining their vitality both now and in the future. Faculty
development is an important goal for all faculty and especially
women, who are under-represented at the highest levels of leadership
in academic medicine. By integrating Women in Medicine as part of
faculty development, the School of Medicine is able to provide a
stable and funded locus to undergird, support, facilitate, guide,
and conduct a variety of faculty development activities and programs
for women. The WIM Faculty Organization supported the establishment
of the OFID and the inclusion of women's programs as part of overall
faculty development. This OFID provides support to the components
of the WIM program for their activities, especially the Pathways
to Leadership Conference, seminar and lecture logistics, financial
support, and budget management. Some examples of programs developed
by OFID that support the WIM program follow.
Faculty Mentoring Guide.
This was developed by OFID as a follow-up to the career development
survey, with advisory committee members from the Committee and Organization.
It was distributed to all faculty members in August 1997. The Guide
promotes mentoring as an excellent way to enhance professional growth.
It includes characteristics of mentors/mentees, suggestions for
finding a mentor/mentee, and provides checklists to evaluate mentoring.
This has been peer-reviewed and is now distributed nationally by
the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine and is used by the AAMC
in Deans' Council training. The Guide has been requested
by some 50 medical schools nationwide and is available in print
and on the web.
Advisory Guidelines for Promotion and Tenure,
July 1997. At the request of the previous dean, Dr. Hermes
Kontos, and to address a concern identified in the faculty survey,
Advisory Guidelines were developed to complement the
SOM promotion and tenure regulatory document. The Guide's
purpose is to assist faculty to more clearly understand the regulatory
process required in both the tenure and collateral tracks. The document
was distributed to all faculties and is maintained on the web. The
project was managed by the OFID, which supported the Ad Hoc Task
Force that developed the Guide.
New
Faculty Orientation. Implemented
in fall 1995, this full day event examines the educational, healthcare,
and scientific environment in the SOM so faculty can better access
institutional resources in support of their teaching, research,
and patient care programs. Also presented are career development
issues. This program is managed in collaboration with our Office
of Continuing Medical Education and funded from gifts to the SOM
Annual Fund.
University
Guidelines on Prohibition of Sexual Harassment.
These Guidelines were mailed to all faculties by the OFID with a
cover memo from me. Some 330-faculty members signed and returned
their acknowledgment of these guidelines. Carol Hampton serves as
the liaison to faculty and channels potential sexual harassment
concerns to school and university officials.
Matching Funds to Support
Attendance at the AAMC Junior and Senior Women's
Professional Development Seminars. The OFID brokers professional
development programs external to our SOM. This includes provision
of matching funds for the AAMC's junior and senior women's programs.
Four women faculty attended these seminars this past year, and two
additional are accepted for this coming December.
Because of the work of our WIM Program,
our institutional culture is changing and we are increasing our
rich appreciation for women and what they bring to our School and
University. The "halo effect" emanating from our WIM Program
is evidenced in several other areas. Dr. Cynthia Heldberg, Associate
Dean, leads our SOM Admissions Office, and Aileen Edwards is our
Director of Admissions. The Chair of the Admissions Committee is
a woman physician, Dr. Michelle Whitehurst-Cook, and 13 of 35 members
of the Admissions Committee are women. Fifty-two percent of this
year's entering first year medical students are women, and 45% of
our medical students across all four years are women.
In 1999, VCU established
an Institute for Women's Health with Dr. Susan Kornstein, Associate
Professor of Psychiatry, as Director. The mission of the Institute
is to improve the health of women through health education, research,
clinical care, and leadership development and create synergy within
VCU, and foster coordinated alliances within the greater community.
The momentum for this Institute came from our women faculty. Four
of the five members of the Institute's Steering Committee are women.
The Institute has recently competed successfully for a $2.7 million,
five-year NIH award for junior faculty development in the area of
"Building Interdisciplinary Research Careers in Women's Health."
In the review panel's comments, there was particular praise for
the environment for faculty development and our WIM Program at VCU:
"There is a strong emphasis on faculty mentoring, demonstrated
by a comprehensive Faculty Mentoring Guide compiled by VCU."
The Women's Health
Track in Internal Medicine was initiated four years ago, and is
one of only 11 such programs in the nation that offers comprehensive,
interdisciplinary training in Women's Health. Dr. Wendy Klein, Associate
Professor of Internal Medicine and Obstetrics-Gynecology, is the
founder and director. One of the factors that has led to the program's
resounding success is its strong mentoring component. Dr. Klein
is also the founding president of our WIM Faculty Organization.
Dr. Joy Ware, Professor of Pathology, is chair
of the search committee for the Chair of Biochemistry. An increased
number of women are appointed as members of chair search committees.
The top two candidates for chair of the Department of Human Genetics
are women. The Chief Operating Officer of MCV Hospitals is a woman.
The next Vice President for Research at VCU, effective September
1, 2000, is a woman. The newly created VCU Grace E. Harris Institute
for Leadership headquartered on our Academic Campus has acknowledged
the outstanding work of our SOM Women's Program and OFID. I cannot
attribute a direct cause-and-effect for these developments; however,
it is my conviction that the efforts of this multifaceted WIM program
have fostered an environment that is recognizing the strength women
bring to our academic medical center.
I want to mention
one additional successful outcome of the combined efforts of the
leaders of our WIM program. Some background is required. During
the winter 2000 legislative session, the Virginia General Assembly
and the Governor authorized the establishment of the Virginia Commonwealth
University Health System Authority, effective July 1, 2000. This
new structure combines the Medical College of Virginia (MCV) Hospitals
Authority, MCV Physicians, and the clinical functions of the SOM
into a single organization, with one CEO, one budget, and a unified
governance system. Oversight and leadership will be provided by
the creation of the VCU Health Authority Board. The Board membership
builds on the current 16-member MCV Hospitals Authority Board of
Directors with five additional appointments representing our physicians.
Through the work of the leaders of our WIM program, two of the five
new physician appointees are women. These two women were appointed
by the Commonwealth of Virginia's Governor and Speaker of the House,
respectively. In addition, leaders in our WIM program facilitated
the election of 3 women physicians as members at large (3 of 8 members
possible) to the Board of the MCV Physicians.
In closing, I am
proud to submit the VCU School of Medicine Women in Medicine Program
for the AAMC 2000 Women in Medicine Leadership Development Award.
These women leaders have quietly but persistently pushed uphill
against various institutional obstacles in working for a climate
of change. They have embraced principles of equity, fairness, opportunity,
professionalism and diversity and have enhanced the environment
for all of our faculty members. I personally am grateful to them
for their ideas, their energy, and their persistence. They have
scattered their ideas like seeds, not only locally here at VCU,
but into many other institutions across the country. Their ideas
and efforts continue to be the strength behind our work in the School
of Medicine at MCV of VCU. It is a privilege to work with them and
nominate them for this prestigious award.
Sincerely,
H.H. Newsome, Jr., M.D.
Dean, School of Medicine
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