The Insider’s Pocket Guide to Navigating a Faculty Career in Academic Medicine

Heather Brod, MA

President, Owner,

Heather Brod LLC, Executive Coaching & Consulting

Heather is an executive coach, consultant, speaker and facilitator primarily to the higher education, healthcare and professional services industries. As a coach she helps professionals cultivate mindsets and habits of authentic leadership. As a consultant she works with companies to create and implement inclusive strategies that develop and leverage the skills of the workforce. 

She is a nationally recognized expert in professional development and has designed and delivered countless workshops and presentations on topics encompassing diversity, equity and inclusion, employee retention, culturally responsive mentoring practices, and models for career development.

For over a decade, Heather led an organizational and talent development center for Ohio State's College of Medicine. She co-founded the Midwest Collaborative for Faculty Affairs and Development (MCFAD), was a 2019 recipient of Ohio State's Glass Breaker award and is past-President of the Columbus Chapter of the Healthcare Businesswomen's Association.

Heather earned her coaching certification from the Hudson Institute of Coaching and is accredited as a Professional Certified Coach by the International Coaching Federation. She has made Columbus, Ohio her home for over 20 years.

Kimberly A. Skarupski, PhD, MPH

Senior Associate Dean for Faculty Development

Professor, Department of Medicine (Div. of Geriatric Medicine and Gerontology)

Professor, Epidemiology (Bloomberg School of Public Health)

Kim is the Senior Associate Dean for Faculty Development in the Office of Faculty Development (OFD) and Professor of Medicine (Division of Geriatric Medicine and Gerontology) in the School of Medicine and Professor of Epidemiology in the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD.

The goal throughout Dr. Skarupski's 17-year faculty development career has been to "build community" (e.g., WAGs [Writing Accountability Groups]; Grant Review Investigator Groups; Specific Aims Speed Sessions; Late-Career and "Next Chapter" Senior Faculty Transitions; group coaching; and building, evaluation, and teaching in various leadership programs). Kim is a certified professional coach through the College of Executive Coaching and has developed group coaching and career development coaching camps for the Hopkins School of Medicine faculty. Kim hosts the Faculty Factory podcast - an international forum for academic affairs and faculty development conversations and a repository of faculty development snippets for academic medical faculty members. As a social gerontologist and program evaluator, the major theme running throughout Kim's 25+ year research career has been the quality of life in older adults, using data from large-scale epidemiologic studies to examine disparities in quality of life, as well as the contribution of various social and psychological determinants of quality of life in older age. Most recently, she has merged her gerontologic and faculty development interests exploring late-career faculty members': career needs; retirement expectations and experiences; and caregiving roles.

Introduction.- Chapter 1. Why academic medicine?.- Chapter 2. Preparing for an academic medicine career.- Chapter 3. Who Am I?.- Chapter 4. Getting the right position in academic medicine.- Chapter 5. Your first year(s) in academic medicine or in a new role in Academic Medicine.- Chapter 6. Minding the "academic" in medicine.- Chapter 7. Promotion.- Chapter 8. Leadership.- Chapter 9. What to do when (not if) things get rough.- Chapter 10. Infusing diversity into your work and embracing an inclusive mindset.- Chapter 11. The work-life integration paradox.- Chapter 12. Transitions.