Chair’s Column November 2024: On Being a Faculty Member

Dear Colleagues,

In September I had the pleasure of hosting my first orientation session for new full-time faculty in the Department of Medicine. This provided me with not only the sense of renewal that comes at the start of an academic year, but also an opportunity to reflect on what it means to be an academic physician.

For me, my academic appointment has meant that I’ve not only had the privilege of providing patient care, but also of teaching (and learning from) superb trainees at all levels, engaging in research with an international community of scientists, and, through my administrative roles, collaborating with hospital and university leaders to advance our common goals. Collectively, this has led to an energizing experience that has allowed me to enjoy my daily work more than two decades after my initial appointment.

However, it would be untrue if I made it sound like it was always easy, and I know that I am not alone in this. A strained healthcare system and rising patient volumes and complexity mean that the clinical workload can be difficult to manage. Changes to the educational system have affected the experience for both faculty and trainees. Research funding is increasingly difficult to obtain. The pandemic has had lingering effects on overall wellbeing. All of this can make it difficult for academic physicians to engage in the teaching and scholarly work that is the hallmark of our jobs.

To address these issues, the Department of Medicine will need to collaborate with many stakeholders, and through our strategic planning – to be undertaken within the year – we will aim to identify potential solutions. In the interim, however, here are a few of the initiatives our executive is undertaking in response to some of the current departmental concerns:

1. Reviewing our approaches to evaluating teaching effectiveness. We are fortunate to have many department members with expertise in assessment and feedback, and we will draw upon this and work with the Temerty Faculty of Medicine to re-examine how teaching evaluations are obtained and used.
2. Reviewing university appointments, promotions, and continuing faculty appointment reviews to ensure that our departmental processes remain efficient and serve the needs of our faculty.
3. Seeking new funding sources for our clinician scientists, as well as supports for other academic activities across all position descriptions.
4. Continuing the recently launched Academic Clinician pathway to allow us to recruit full-time faculty whose primary focus is on patient care.

In the brief time since starting as chair, I’ve already been deeply impressed with what I’ve witnessed of the energy, talent, and contributions of our department. I am confident that we will flourish despite the challenges we face, and I look forward to engaging with all of you to sustain and build on our department’s many, many successes. 

Dr. Moira Kapral
Sir John and Lady Eaton Professor and Chair of Medicine