P&T Peer Mentorship Program

Banner image for P&T Mentorship program

The School of Medicine Office of Faculty Development and the Faculty Advancement & Development Committee recognize that mentorship is crucial in academic development, particularly for faculty in smaller departments that may not have formal mentorship arrangements. The SOM recognizes that the recruitment, retention and advancement of a diverse faculty is essential to addressing the needs of underserved, racial/ethnic communities and other diverse communities. A diverse workforce that represents the patient population ensures better understanding of the barriers to care that need to be addressed in order to decrease health disparities. The promotion of all faculty is critical as we advance the next generation of physicians, scholars and educators to reflect those we serve.

It is with this knowledge that we have launched the first phase of a mentorship program focused on promotion and tenure.

The aim of the program will be to provide a P&T mentor to faculty at the Assistant Professor level who will provide the mentee with advice and assistance through the latter stages of the promotion and tenure process.

Interested in participating?

If you would like to sign up for the current P&T cycle, as either a prospective mentee or mentor, please use the below linked form.

Initial mentee/mentor matches have already been made, but you can still sign up. Matches will be made on a rolling basis through the Summer, as long as mentors are available.

Sign up now

The initial phase* of this program will be aimed at School of Medicine faculty at the Assistant Professor level who are actively preparing packets for presentation in the upcoming P&T cycle (mentees) and faculty who have achieved promotion to Associate Professor level within the past 3 years or who have previously served on P&T committees (mentors).

*Future plans are to extend mentorship to faculty within 0-2 years of hiring, so that mentees can position themselves for promotion within the next 5-7 years.

Selection

There is currently no set cutoff number of available mentee slots for this program, and the hope each year is that there will be enough mentors to match all interested mentees.

If there are more interested mentees than available mentors however, selection will take into consideration, but not be limited to, a prospective mentee's gender identity 1, 2, 3, 4 , race and ethnicity 3, 4  and the size and available resources of their department, with an eye towards systemic change and equity at OHSU 5 and beyond.

1. Promising Practices for Understanding and Addressing Salary Equity at U.S. Medical Schools, AAMC
2. AAMC Faculty Salary Report
3. Is your salary equitable? A guide for individual faculty, AAMC Group on Women in Medicine and Science
4. Diversity in Medicine: Facts and Figures 2019, AAMC
5. Oregon Health & Science University 2020 Fact Book

Matching

To best ensure focused mentoring as it pertains to P&T, we hope to pair recently promoted faculty with an Assistant Professor faculty member on a similar professional track.

Additionally, one of the key characteristics of this program is to match mentees with mentors from a different School of Medicine department. This aspect of the program has been valued for the additional perspective that this can bring to the process.

Mentors will work with faculty who are actively preparing their promotion and tenure application.

Mentorship will involve a limited number of sessions (minimum of three) focused on the preparation of the CV, educator’s portfolio and personal statement. Crafting these pieces of the portfolio often poses significant challenges and we anticipate that those seeking mentorship will most appreciate having a guide through these steps.

We also expect mentors to be a thinking partner as mentees consider rating their academic achievements as satisfactory or substantial, and to assist their mentee(s) in the selection of letter writers and strategies to ask for non-biased letters.

As a mentor, you should not need formal training to succeed in your role for this program, so long as you are capable of acting as a sounding board and thinking partner. The following list of resources may however prove helpful:

The following list of resources have been compiled to help you make the most out of your mentoring relationship, and to assist you in the the actual preparation of your P&T application:

Jen-Jane Liu, Co-Director, P&T Mentorship Program

Kristian Enestvedt, Co-Director, P&T Mentorship Program

Office of Faculty Development & the Faculty Advancement and Development Committee: facdev@ohsu.edu