Present: Susan Guralnick, Fred McCurdy, Gege Edwards, Jose Gonzalez, Surendra Varma, Tom George, Valerie Panzarino, Reuka Verma, Janara Huff, Ed Zalneraitis, Suzanne Woods, Karen Wickline, Miriam Bar-on, Cliff Yu, Marty Weisse.

Began meeting with introductions and explanations of handouts (agenda and annual report). This year the taskforce was given the charge by the board to produce some tangible products. Three products resulted from the taskforce’s efforts:

1. Peds 101: Under the direction of Cliff Yu and Marty Weisse, along with the guidance and support of Jackie Burke at the AAP, this project came (almost) to fruition. The booklet was felt to need revision for printing in hard copy. Cliff and Marty identified the audience to which the booklet was targeted – everyone, and decided to, because of financial reasons, keep it in a single booklet, but have three color coded sections:

• Peds 101 will talk about medical school, the application process etc, with the target audience of college students and anyone interested in medical school.
• Peds 201 will focus on pediatric residency programs and selection, primarily targeting medical students
• Peds 301 will explore pediatric careers, fellowships, practice and other aspects of pediatric careers. Target audience will be pediatric and medicine/pediatric residents.

This booklet will also be posted on the AAP website and individual sections will be able to be downloaded independently.

The AAP has $12,000 to pay for the booklet’s publishing that has to be spent by June 30. It was noted that if someone has adobe editing, one can tailor the booklet to their specific institution.

2. Mentoring program: Our first call for mentors was made at the end of April 2005. We had a fairly good return of volunteers to be mentors (about 10) and 10 individuals who requested mentors. We will follow these relationships to determine if it was a productive match and assess if the mentoring process really helped the individuals both mentees and mentors.

Other things that were done this year to help new members was to identify new program directors with a green dot on their name badges and to identify first time attendees with a red dot on their name badges. A comment was made during the meeting that having new program directors stand up during the plenary and be introduced would be a good idea.

3. Workshop: the taskforce will present its first sponsored workshop on Friday May 13, 2005. The workshop, Promotion and the Program Director, is targeted to mid career program directors. Miriam Bar-on, Susan Guralnick, Surendra Varma, and Ed Zalneraitis will be the presenters.

4. New business:

• The group felt very strongly that the organization should work on developing a scholarship opportunity for new program directors to attend the fall meeting. This meeting was selected as it is really the orientation to becoming a pediatric program director. The scholarship could cover part of one’s expenses and provide incentive to begin a productive relationship with the APPD. Selection critera were not established.

• In an effort to maximize the opportunity for program directors to get additional skills and education either to help do their jobs better or to develop professionally, the taskforce thought that rather than developing a parallel track at the fall meeting, we could offer preconference workshops – perhaps 2 and charge a minimal extra fee to attend one of them. This way program directors could maximize their travel dollars.

Topics suggested for 2006 in San Francisco include:

• Preparing a PIF (suggested speakers Ed, Surendra, Carol and Jerry/Mary Alice)
• Professionalism in a shift work mentality environment ensuring good care to patients
  (speakers TBS)
• Leadership and management skills

• There was some discussion on the effectiveness of the fall workshops, especially of the professional development ones. It was proposed that attendees of the fall meeting be surveyed asking 3-5 simple questions, looking at what was done that worked, what was done that didn’t’ work, and what else should be offered.

5. Strategic Plan: the taskforce reviewed the items in the strategic plan assigned to our taskforce:

• Utilize the expertise of the faculty development taskforce to create offerings of interest to our membership.
• Identify and describe the role/responsibilities of program directors – draft a PD job description
• Meet with PESC chair and members as well as AMSPDC members to develop and initiate strategies to favorably influence the promotion process on a national level
• Develop a series of workshops on academic advancement including career planning, teaching portfolios and the annotated CV
• Develop a network of senior mentors within the APPD to support more junior members in the promotion process-the faculty development taskforce should help define these
• Develop a faculty development curriculum to implement competency based education program
• Fall and spring workshops for PD to teach faculty.
• Consultation programs (advertise heavily)
• Create a format and forum for faculty development in product use
• Create a technologic format and forum for faculty development in product use
• Reserve time at the annual meeting for a faculty development workshop devoted to technology.
• Maintain and promote the consultation program
• Improve membership knowledge of and ability to influence funding for their programs
• Educate membership on required support and consequences for failure to comply, to allow them to inform their departments and institutions.

6. Goals and products for the upcoming year:

• Continue the Mentor program, with surveys of the mentors at 3,6,9, 12 months or perhaps less frequently.
• Submit workshop proposals for the annual meeting:
  • Mentoring: Jose Gonzalez, Greg Blashke, Joe Loprieato
  • Teaching competencies to faculty: Susan Guralnick, Miriam Bar-on, and others
  • Teach how to get appropriate funding for one’s program: Ed Zalneraitis
• Craft a job description for program directors with input from the membership
• Begin preconference workshops
• Address action items above and work on items in the strategic plan

Respectfully submitted,

Miriam Bar-on, M.D.
Chair, Taskforce on Faculty Development