Career Development and Mentoring

The goal of the Department of Medicine Career Development Program is to promote the professional development and satisfaction of faculty members in different stages of their careers, with a particular focus on the career development of early career faculty. Please contact Christine_crist@urmc.rochester.edu with questions regarding career development programs.

Early Career Faculty

Faculty at the early stages of their career have a lot to do—developing and refining their clinical practice, teaching skills, and research or scholarship, all while balancing their personal and professional responsibilities.  To help each faculty member be successful in this process, we introduce Career Development Committees for early career faculty members.

A Career Development Committee will be formed by the faculty member with assistance from their division chief.  Each committee will consist of three faculty members, at least one of whom will be from outside the Department of Medicine in order to encourage collaboration and networking at the institution.  

The frequency of mentorship committee meetings can be guided by faculty career goals, though a committee should meet (at minimum) twice yearly to be most useful.  For those faculty members with a strong research focus frequency of meetings will be determined in collaboration with the primary research mentor.

The goals of the career development committees are to provide: 

• Ongoing individualized support to guide professional development
• Feedback and guidance regarding progress towards career goals 
• Additional points of view and discussion of options when barriers develop or a change in focus is desired 
• Anticipatory guidance regarding the promotion process
• Critical and constructive review of research and scholarly work and guidance on research benchmarks (including grants and publications) and training

Mid-Career Faculty

Mid-career faculty members should focus on expanding their reach—broadening their scope of impact while also stretching to demonstrate excellence in leadership, service, and education.  While continued participation in the mentoring program is not required once promoted to Associate Professor, it is encouraged to promote ongoing professional development.  Mentorship at this stage may look different than at the early career level as faculty continue to develop in areas of leadership, independent research and scholarship, clinical innovations, educational program development and administration, and community and national service.  As new professional goals emerge, new mentoring relationships may be useful.

Information Regarding the Academic Promotion Process

Please visit URMC Academic Affairs for in depth information on components (Teaching, Scholarship, Research, Clinical) and criteria for promotion.