Geriatrics Recruitment Resources

at the University of Chicago

Program Overview

The Innovative Teaching Program is a dedicated approach to developing geriatrics clinician-educator fellows and junior faculty who are recognized locally—and eventually nationally—for their expertise in a specific area of clinical geriatrics and related academic and teaching endeavors.

Clinician-educator trainees select a specific clinical area or ‘niche’ on which to focus their teaching pursuits, similar to an area of concentration for clinician-researchers. Through this approach, clinician-educator fellows and junior faculty become the "go to" people for clinical expertise and innovative teaching in their defined areas. With this expertise, they help take the lead on developing new lectures, courses, and electives in their topic area.

Program Operations

Shortly after their arrival at the institution, each clinician-educator trainee meets with the Geriatrics Section Chief to develop a strategic career plan. An annual overview of faculty interests enables trainees to select an area of clinical focus and to identify mentors with expertise in that area. Areas of focus have included palliative care, geriatric oncology, dementia, pain management, polypharmacy, ethnogeriatrics, systems of care, and specific geriatric care settings such as long- term care

The strategic career plan forms the basis of the clinician-educator trainees applying for funding and presenting at meetings in their chosen area of expertise. Trainees are urged to keep complete records of courses they teach, lectures they give, and presentations they make, to build a record of accomplishment around their content area of choice.

To provide them with sufficient time to develop their teaching skills as well as expertise in their clinical niche, the Department of Medicine reduces the clinical time required of geriatrics clinician-educator trainees. This provides more time for clinician-educator faculty to teach geriatrics and serve as mentors to medical students and residents.

Mentees identify mentors through discussions with the Section Chief and the Fellowship Director, as well as at a transitions gathering at the beginning of the academic year. Mentors meet with mentees at least quarterly.

Staffing Requirements

There are no special staffing requirements necessary for the program. Geriatrics faculty are able to organize their interactions with the clinician-educator trainees through their identified area of interest. Faculty and staff from other areas, such as medical education, are engaged to advise on and assist with the educational programs that are being created by the geriatrics clinician-educators.

Program Costs and Funding Sources

The clinician-educator program is supported by the Hartford Center of Excellence, both through salary support for faculty within the section and through support for specific meritorious pilot grant funding awarded to faculty members. Clinician-educator trainees (junior faculty and fellows) are mentored by senior faculty who are at the Associate Professor and Professor levels. The Department of Medicine supports faculty time through a faculty funding agreement recognizing their efforts.

Further support for clinician-educator fellows and junior faculty came from the Reynolds Foundation Aging and Quality of Life Program Award, which supports the University’s Care of the Hospitalized Aging Medical Patient (CHAMP) education program. This award was granted in recognition of both the strategic alliances with faculty and staff across the Department of Medicine and the identified areas of expertise and targeted career development for clinician-educators. Five clinician-educator junior faculty have secured Geriatric Academic Career Awards (GACAs) as well.

Process and Outcomes Data

The program is designed to assist fellows and junior faculty in meeting the criteria for promotion as clinician-educators. Currently, three out of three junior faculty participants have been successfully promoted to the Associate Professor level (one at the University of Chicago, and two at other academic medical institutions). One is now Chief of General Medicine and Geriatrics at another university. Nine former fellows have been promoted to the Assistant Professor level.

Through the innovative teaching approach to training clinician-educators, new, formal teaching efforts in geriatrics now exist in multiple specialty areas, such as geriatric-oncology, palliative care, and urology. Medical students and residents also benefit from teaching efforts and many receive regular mentoring from geriatrics faculty on educational research projects.

Each participant is expected to write up their experiences for presentation at national meetings and for publication.

Implementation Lessons

• Engaging institutional stakeholders within the medical school early on helped to quickly: 1) identify faculty members as local experts who could serve as mentors for the clinician-educator fellows and junior faculty, and 2) identify and met the geriatrics educational needs of the medical school and residency programs. These stakeholders included the Dean for Medical Education, Associate Dean for Medical School Education (former Vice-Chair of the Department of Medicine), Assistant Dean for Curricular Innovation, and the Clinical Skills Course Director.
• The involvement of the above stakeholders also enabled geriatrics fellows and junior faculty interested in medical education to focus on career development in that area. For example, one faculty member received national recognition for the development of clinical training through his Observed Structured Teaching Exercise (OSTE) program.

Available Materials

Website

• Curriculum for Hospitalized Aging Medical Patient (CHAMP) http://www.champ.bsd.uchicago.edu.

For More Information

William Dale, MD, PhD
Interim Chief of Geriatrics
University of Chicago
Department of Medicine, MC 6098
5841 South Maryland Avenue
Chicago, IL 60637
(773) 834-0508
wdale@medicine.bsd.uchicago.edu

or

Stacie Levine, MD
Fellowship Director
University of Chicago
Department of Medicine, MC 6098
5841 South Maryland Ave
Chicago, IL 60637
(773) 834-8130
slevine@medicine.bsd.uchicago.edu

Download the program as a PDF file