Health Disparity Research What Is New and Exciting: How Do We Close the Gap

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Health Disparity Research What Is New and
Exciting How Do We Close the Gap?

• Juanita L. Merchant, M.D., Ph.D.
• Departments of Internal Medicine and
  Molecular/Integrative Physiology
• University of Michigan

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Percentage of Minority Medical School Faculty (U
of M)
(As of Jan 2003)
(1600 Medical School Faculty)
20
15
of Total Medical School Faculty
10
5
0
Native
Asian
Af-Am
Hispanic
3
Minority Faculty per Track
4
Minority Faculty per Track
5
Minority Faculty per Track
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How Do We Close the Gap?

• Increase the pool of committed minority
  scientists
• Increase their success at achieving promotion and
  tenure

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Increasing the Minority Pool Size

• Advertising what about YOUR CAREER excites you to
  pre-college, college and post-baccalaureate
  students
• Encourage careers in SCIENCE
• Tutoring
• Shadowing
• Summer employment (high school, beyond)

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How Do We Close the Gap?

• Increase the pool of committed minority
  scientists
• Increase their SUCCESS at achieving promotion and
  tenure

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Achieving Success as A Physician Scientist

• Mentorship
• Negotiations
• Tenure Clock
• Lab Set-up
• Personnel

• Grants
• Selling your work
• Learn to Say No
• The Academic Currency

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Find a Mentor
Gold in Them Thar Hills!
The Jackpot is Over Here!
This is the Way
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Find A Mentor
Person w/ Mentor
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Finding a Mentor

• You cannot succeed alone
• A good mentor-mentee relationship will span a
  lifetime
• Three types of mentors
• Teacher/Instructor
• Political
• Personal Development

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Prioritize Your Goals

• Where do you see yourself in 1,3,5-10 years
• Typical goals
• Develop a successful research program
• Get Tenure
• Will you continue to be a physician-scientist OR
  pursue more administrative duties?

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Tenure TimeLine
If Yea, tenure Achieved
If Nay, termination Letter Issued CV resubmitted
Decision Rendered
CV Submitted
Terminated?
Start
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The Tenets of Tenure

• I. Research
• A. Publications Peer-reviewedgt Reviews Bk
  Chapters
• B. Extramural Grant Support R01 typegtVAMerit gt
  Foundation grants
• C. Independence Hard Criteria, Soft Criteria
• D. Outside Letters Address independence, Impact
  on your field
• E. Invited Talks/Symposia-support independence

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The Tenets of Tenure

• II. Teaching
• Courses w/ student reviews
• Resident evaluations
• Symposia evaluation scores
• Success of your students (where are they now)
• III. Service
• Administration
• Committees-Space, Search, Promotion
• National Committees- Study sections, Editorial
  Boards

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Get Ready, Get Set, Get Tenured

• Know the tenure policy at your institution
• About how many manuscripts?
• First or Senior Corresponding author?
• The Journal impact factor
• What about Reviews, book chapters?
• Cool to collaborate?
• How many and type of extramural grants?
• Outside Letters--Need to sell yourself

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Negotiating Your First Faculty Position

• Are you willing to change locations to obtain a
  better recruitment package?
• Negotiate from a position of strength
• Grant in hand
• Impressive CV (peer-reviewed, first author
  papers)
• How much clinical time?
• Recruitment package How much for how long?
• Salary
• Equipment
• Supplies

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Starting Your Research Program

• Keep clinical/patient based duties to a minimum
  Remember, you may be the only person
• Initially generating results
• Writing papers and grants
• Triple threat/Triple failure
• Recommend q.o.wk endo, clinic 1-2 mo inpatient
  duties Avoid inpatient attending the first year
  Avoid committees (first 3 yrs)

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Lab Set up The basics

• Order equipment at least 6 month before you are
  ready to begin experiments
• Interview, but do NOT hire a technician until you
  are ready to perform experiments
• Prioritize/Strategize (the Triple Lab Threat)
• Design expts. That will culminate in publications
  in lt1 yr
• publications in 3 y
• Collaborative projects
• Within your institution outside the institution

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Personnel

• Try to get joint appointments in basic science
  depts or programs that have graduate students
• Increase visibility in basic science depts
• Basic science depts hungry for the clinical
  correlations lecture
• Find postdoctoral fellows
• Job postings at basic science meetings,e.g.,
  FASEB, Gordon Conferences, Keystone mtgs, etc.
• First-time postdoctoral fellows

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Follow the Money

• Develop a list of career development grants
• Multiple websites Foundation, NIH, RFAs
• Pilot grants within institution
• Need to generate publications prior to faculty
  appointment
• Need to have a project up and running
• Preferably one that you are continuing from
  fellowship

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How Sell Your Work

• Means nothing til its in print
• Abstracts are studies in progress
• Must convert to peer-reviewed papers to be
  accepted fully
• Give talks at other institutions
• Speak at meeting (abstract submitted)
• Invited talks

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Learn to Say No

• DO NOT underestimate the time investment
• Committees that increase your profile acceptable
  compromise (search, research award, thesis
  committees)
• Heavy clinical duties may pay the bills,
• but WILL impede your ability compete for
  funding and eventually to make tenure

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Academic Currency

• Papers beget
• Grants beget
• Increased personnel
• Time to pursue other administrative or leadership
  interests

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Health Disparity Research How Do We Fill the
GAP?
YOUR SUCCESS IS ESSENTIAL TO FILLING THE GAP