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Dr. Vickers: Hi, and welcome to the checkup podcast. My name is Selwyn Vickers. I'm the senior vice president of medicine and Dean at the university of Alabama, Birmingham on the checkup. We, introduce you to people who are powering science and medicine at UAB and around the globe, we discuss the broader issues of healthcare, including clinical outcomes, disparities research.

As well as our overall growth of our faculty and the maturation of our school, we hopefully will provide tremendous insight to where healthcare is going and the opportunities UAB is providing for the care for our patients and leading in research in this part of the country. So thank you for listening to the checkup.

We'll dive right now into our next episode. Today, in our episode, we're joined by two critical leaders in our School of Medicine. Dr. Anupam Agarwal, who is the executive Vice Dean and has been critical to so much of our success in the School of Medicine, broadly in research, management of faculty, as well as in leadership and guiding the overall institution. And then Dr. Jean Ann Larson, who is our Senior Associate Dean for Leadership and Development. Dr. Larson has been vital in the maturation of our leaders, particularly our department chairs and our vice chairs across the scope of the institution, providing tools, insight, and support for the execution of their roles. So welcome to both of you and thank you for being here.

Maybe as we get started, Jean Ann and Anupam, can you tell us a little bit about yourself? And give our listeners a little bit of understanding of your background.

Dr. Jean Ann Larson: Thank you very much, Dean Vickers. It's a pleasure to be here with yourself and with Dr. Agarwal. Um, I came to UAB about five years ago and um, I had an interesting path into leadership. I actually started my healthcare career as a process engineer. And long story short, I started to realize that when it came down to successful organizations, successful processes, whatever the case may be, it was all about leadership.

So I had an opportunity throughout my career to hold several roles as a senior executive, and then ultimately a chief learning officer. And then I also ran my own business. And I came here with a passion for, wow, how can we make a great strong organization even better by improving our leaders and making sure that our success here is sustainable? So an unusual background, but some logic to it.

Dr. Vickers: Great.

Dr. Anupam Agarwal: Thank you, Selwyn, for the opportunity to participate in this, uh, The Checkup podcast. A little bit about myself. I'm a nephrologist. I've been serving as the Director for the Nephrology Division. And I greatly appreciate the opportunity to serve as Executive Vice Dean for the School of Medicine where I've played a role in partnering with chairs, center directors, institute leaders in leading large programmatic efforts, large programmatic grants, recruitment and retention of faculty, also partnering with the various senior associate deans within the School of Medicine with their priority areas, and also helping with key partnerships with our partner institutions, for example, Birmingham VA Medical Center, and also helping with internal and external communications with the School of Medicine.

Dr. Vickers: You both sound like you have full-time jobs. So today, we're going to talk about a topic hopefully that you can provide some insight to our leaders. We sometimes talk about a lot of healthcare issues and talk about challenges. But today, we're going to talk about the development of our leaders and our key people with whom without them, we would really not be who we are today.

We're going to speak about mentorship and leadership. The School of Medicine is made up of a number of outstanding faculty and staff. And yet there needs to be huge opportunities for their growth. Historically, we've built a reputation on collaboration, growth, unity, as well as a willingness to try to impact our area in healthcare in every way possible. Yet to achieve that, both mentorship and leadership and professional development are critical for our growth and continued success.

Maybe, Anupam, can you speak to the role of mentorship in the vitality and growth of our School of Medicine?

Dr. Anupam Agarwal: Selwyn, I could not emphasize what you just said as regards to the importance of mentorship and leadership development for our faculty within the School of Medicine. Several years ago, I think it was 2012, when one of the HLA, Healthcare Leadership Academy group, decided to do a survey of what the landscape of mentorship was within our School of Medicine. So over 1400 faculty were surveyed. I think the response rate was over 800 faculty and there was a clear need that mentorship was an important area they felt that there was a need for. And this was particularly true for our assistant professors and associate professors.

So based on that, our Senior Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs and Faculty Development, David Rogers, put in place some programs within the School of Medicine to help with mentorship. And based on that sort of background, several departments have developed their own uh, you know, uh, uh, mentorship programs. But something we want to do down the road is to really formalize a mentorship program within the School of Medicine, so particularly our junior faculty can really benefit from these programs.

I personally have benefited tremendously from having great mentors that are outside of my research areas, whether they are being mentors for my own research program or for my career mentor. And those have been really important. And I would also like to differentiate mentorship from sponsorship. I think both have to go hand in hand. Our faculty needs to also have sponsors that could help them get into important societies, leadership opportunities and so on. So I think they both have to go hand in hand and that's something we would develop in the coming months within the School of Medicine.

Dr. Vickers: Anupam. I appreciate that. And I think I agree with you fully. It's a critical part of our growth and I think each of us could speak to the success that we may have had that might not have occurred without great mentors. Jean Ann, how does leadership development fit into the growth of an institution and its ability to achieve its goals?

Dr. Jean Ann Larson: Well, similar to what Anupam was saying, I think leadership and mentorship go really hand in hand. And one of the things that we've been trying to do with all of our various leadership development programs is to make sure that there's an opportunity and a piece of mentorship built-in both for the participants to seek out mentoring. But also to become mentors themselves. Because I think what many of us have probably learned, myself included, as a mentor, been both a mentee and a mentor many times in my life, I often learn from those mentees as well and, again, different perspectives, different ways of looking at it.

So for example, in our UAB Medicine Institute for Leadership, we offer every single participant the ability for us to match them with a mentor. What are the specific goals? What are the specific things they want to learn about what specific individuals? And literally set that up for them and really kind of launch that because we feel like that's an integral part to becoming a better leader. So I think they really go hand in hand.

Dr. Vickers: Great. I fully agree. Anupam, you mentioned the idea of formalizing this. Can you speak to why that's important and how mentorship is so critical for individual faculty member's success?

Dr. Anupam Agarwal: I think, We have to be really intentional about mentorship. It's very similar to some of the programs that we develop in our Diversity, Inclusion and Equity under Mona Fouad's leadership, really formalizing that program has really made an impact to our School of Medicine in that area. So by doing the same for mentorship, I think we can clearly make an impact formalizing the program, so all our junior faculty will take advantage of those programs.

Dr. Vickers: Well, I agree. I think that intentionality is going to be huge because a lot of times, if we look back at our mentoring relationships, it may have been sort of an accidental thing that happened. And it may, in some ways, been something that may have not been thoroughly planned out and we've benefited. But large numbers can't achieve those gains and those goals if it's just based on something happening.

We've often, through Jean Anne um, and through others, have had a focus on our senior leaders. We've given attention to our chairs. When they all come in, they get your support, Jean Ann. They get support from a coach. They get a peer coach. But, as Anupam highlighted, we've not had a focus on our junior and our mid-level faculty. Can you speak to the importance in potentially the program that you all are developing to really impact our mid-level faculty um, and to give them a sense of both value, but also provide a set of resources for their future growth?

Dr. Anupam Agarwal: Yeah, a really great question, Selwyn. And I'll let Jean Ann, who's been a great partner in developing a pilot program that will be launched later this year for the Faculty Leadership Development Program for mid-career faculty. So Jean Ann, would you like to comment on that further?

Dr. Jean Ann Larson: Yeah. Thank you very much, Anupam. Um, I think again, as as we've said earlier, what we were seeing is that we are emphasizing a lot of a lot of assistance and work and support, if you will, for our senior leaders. We have some programs for entry-level leaders across the campus, but oftentimes, and probably in any of our careers, you know, you kind of hit that mid-level, then what? You know, what's next and what can we do to support?

So really it was to make sure that we were intentionally focusing on that group and building their leadership capability. You know, long after we're gone, hopefully many of them will stay. we are putting together a pilot program and some of the stuff that we're working on and I'm quite excited about, we want to use some um, peer mentoring approaches, but also you know, communication style to help them you know, help them even be better mentors and better coaches for their colleagues, developing emotional intelligence, you know, how you kind of manage your time and your energy.

I think as we find, as we move up in an organization, life can get a little bit more complex, how to have candid conversations with their peers or colleagues, and then career development too, as well. Because I think the other piece of mentoring that I've had to learn myself is that there's formal programs, and please take advantage of all of them, but sometimes you just have to ask and probably that some of those serendipitous mentoring opportunities that happen for us is because, "Wow, I like the way that person conducts themselves, makes the presentation. So I'm going to get courageous and reach out and say, 'Hey, Don, I really liked the way you presented those very complicated financial figures. Would you have coffee with me? Would you have lunch? And tell me what you do. Tell me how you learn. Tell me how you prepare.'" And most of the time people will say, yes, they're flattered. And if they're too busy, they'll tell you, "Well, I've always talked to this person." so don't be afraid to ask, especially if there's a specific goal that you have in mind. And I would offer anybody who's listening, if you have a goal, you want to learn something, think about somebody who does it really, really well, and don't be afraid to ask.

Dr. Vickers: That sounds tremendously exciting and I'm sure our faculty will be engaged and excited about the opportunity. Jean Ann and Anupam, you all spoke about briefly the range of opportunities as it relates to who may be involved in a faculty's career, spoke about sponsorship, coaching, and mentorship, mentoring teams. Can you expound on what that might look like for a faculty? How might they gain access? Uh, You shared a brief example, Jean Ann, hearing somebody to give a talk and being brave enough to do that. How important are those different roles to their development?

Dr. Anupam Agarwal: So, one of the things um, earlier this year, the Provost Office has developed a matching program for mentors and mentees that's still in the works, that Steve Yoder and others have taken the lead on. So we want to build upon that for sure. But I think we also want to engage the department chairs, the division leaders, the center directors, institute directors as well in helping us with building that mentorship program, because it clearly has to be beyond, you know, your leadership, your direct supervisor. It has to be outside of that supervisor role that this mentor has to have.

The prime, you know, really interest of the mentee in what their career goals are, and not just in terms of promotion or tenure and those sorts of things. But beyond that, you know, general development of that mentee, I think, is really critical for their overall career development. So that has to be taken into consideration, which may not always be possible by a department chair for that matter.

Dr. Vickers: Jean Ann, you can comment on that. Then I was going to ask you to comment on the peer group coaching model.

Dr. Jean Ann Larson: Yeah. First, to follow up on what Anupam was saying, and I think, Dean Vickers, you alluded to it. Sometimes, it's been almost serendipitous when we've had a mentor, so definitely go broad, not just, you know, in your own area, you know, maybe outside of your research area, outside of your area of specialization. So don't focus too hard, I would say that.

Now, with the peer group mentoring model, what's exciting about that and several of the programs that we offer, there are cohort groups. So you get to know the people that you're learning with. And if you put the peer group mentoring model into the midst of that, people are learning from each other. So you're having discussions. Maybe you're having a conversation around, "Wow, how do I, you know, speak up and manage, you know, competing priorities or conflict in my department?" And you're having that conversation. Obviously, content is provided there, but it can be very, very impactful to find out how others, A, first, the fact that others are struggling with the same thing and thing two is how are they addressing those issues and what are they learning? So the whole group walks away with additional information beyond just the content. And I always figure I'm successful when I'm having those conversations if the group has learned as much from each other as they have from me.

Dr. Vickers: So to both of you, if this pilot is successful, what might this look like full blown on our campus in the School of Medicine?

Dr. Anupam Agarwal: So as Jean Ann mentioned, you know, we hope to launch the pilot in the fall. We've already reached out to some of the chairs of departments to nominate faculty. Our hope is to potentially do it at least twice a year of small cohort of faculty that initially we would extend it to assistant professors as well. Um, uh, you know, In addition to the mid-career faculty, we also extend it to early career faculty. We could see extending this to chief residents, you know, from the residency program to really build that cadre of leaders, upcoming leaders, that could be on faculty and then grow up the ranks and build a team, you know, that could be future division directors, center directors, chairs that we have an internal faculty development program that is specific to our institution.

None of us learned this in medical school. You know, we were never taught conflict resolution or having a difficult conversation or hiring or firing somebody. You know, these are things we kind of learn, you know, by accident. But I think it's really important that we include a formal training and that differentiates UAB school of medicine from other institutions in a big way.

Dr. Vickers: Jean Ann, many times when we have these conversations, people are wanting to hear the newest drug and the latest surgical approach to solving a problem. But this some might call soft science. But arguably, that's not the case. Tell me why do you think leadership is important?

Dr. Jean Ann Larson: Well, I think it's very important because it actually leads to outcomes. You know, we say better leadership, better outcomes. And there's been research whether you're looking at patient safety, you're looking at quality, financial results over time. I mean, certainly you can have short-term gains without good leadership, but over time, it does require good leadership. If nothing else, you're able to, you know, retain your individuals, your talent. So I think it's very, very critical. And I think probably one of the most critical skills when somebody asks me what's one thing I should do to improve leadership, and we all can work on this, is really do what we can to work on our emotional intelligence, self-awareness and self-regulation, which again will be certainly part of these programs and part of most of the programs that we offer here at UAB for leaders.

Dr. Vickers: I fully agree. I would say, as I work with Dr. Agarwal, 75% of what we do is helping people execute on their leadership. The other 25% is when they fail not to, so it is vitally important. And I am so thankful that we're formalizing this program for our mid-career faculty. As you said, we have some things when you first enter here and we have some things when you become a senior leader. But it's that mere career opportunity that I think is really going to be a fortunate addition for our institution.

Jean Ann, I know you have had a passion for helping, particularly women train. Can you speak to me about a program that we may be starting in partnership with a local organization?

Dr. Jean Ann Larson: Yes. No, thank you very much for asking that question because the one thing I would also say is that what we've tried to do is we've tried to inventory and/or create leadership development opportunities for leaders at different points in their journey because, you know, we're all growing and developing. But the one that we're hoping to launch this fall is a partnership that we've made with Momentum Leaders, which is an executive leadership development not-for-profit here in Birmingham. We're blessed to have them.

Many executive women at UAB have participated in their program and it's wonderful and we've all benefited from it. The challenge that we've had is we're kind of victims of our own success. Momentum, because they're trying to, you know, have a very diverse group of women from different organizations and industries, they can only take maybe a couple of women a year for that program. Well, if you look around UAB and you look at our size and you look at the many senior executive women, a lot of women will never have that experience. So, you know, with the leadership of Dr. Cheri Canon with Patricia Pritchett, Dr. Tony Jones, we've engaged in a partnership with Momentum. And we're basically going to parallel their program, speakers, activities here for UAB executive women. And again, we'll be piloting it starting in the fall.

So we've got a lot of great stuff starting in the fall, but I'm very excited about that program because I had an opportunity to go through that when I first came to Birmingham. And even though I've been to many different leadership development activities, courses, experiences, this is very unique and Birmingham is blessed to have this kind of an organization because they also offer mentoring. In fact, any woman that's listening to this, if you want a mentor, a formal mentor, look up momentumleaders.org. You can sign up for a mentor. Many UAB women, myself included, we serve as mentors through that program. They do the matching, they take care of it. They're wonderful matches. I've benefited from it, both as a mentee and a mentor. So we're very, very fortunate to be able to partner with them on that this year.

Dr. Vickers: And this is really exciting. I'm really excited to hear that we're going to have this availability to be broadly offered to our women senior leaders. And you're right. It is unfortunate that the program outside can only take two or three where we have a number who I think would really benefit from this. So that's really great.

If you were to think about the practical implications of mentorship, Dr. Agarwal, you've been a division director of a large division that's been funded with extremely large amount of support from the NIH, DoD and other agencies. Can you speak to how mentorship and leadership help you grow that division and how faculty benefited from that, not only from you, but from others who were in your division?

Dr. Anupam Agarwal: Some of the key criteria we've asked our faculty to really make sure that mentorship was a priority for them, that it was recognized by the leadership, not only at the divisional level, but at the departmental level that if they mentored a K awardee or a fellow with an F award or a T32 training grant, that we listen to them as well, that they had the time to really listen to them and make sure we followed up on what the mentee required. So that was really front and center and was valued very highly by the divisional leadership.

And based on that, we have now created a program where Dr. Orlando Gutierrez, who's the Associate Division Director and the incoming new Division Director, he has now reached out to several of our senior faculty, about eight of them who serve as mentors, and they're assigned mentees as assistant professors within their first five years. They meet with them every quarter, relate to them any issues related with their career development. And if there are anything specific, they bring it to the leadership's attension of the division, and then we act upon it as needed.

And that feedback has been really important. More importantly, It really provides the mentee really a satisfaction that their voice is being heard, their concerns are being heard much, very early in the process, that if they're frustrated or upset about something, that at least they have, their voices are heard and some action is being taken by the divisional leadership. And that I think has been really useful for the faculty. That's something we need to, you know, make sure we do it school-wide, that could really have an impact.

Dr. Vickers: Yeah, I'm proud to hear that you have an outstanding division that you're turning over to Dr. Gutierrez. I'm encouraged because I realize one of the big challenges that faculty have is that they're trying to reach a destination that they've never been before, right? And it's not easy to get to that destination without a guide, without support and without direction. And a mentor provides a huge amount of that to get that person from point A to point Z and to expect our faculty to do it without that is quite untenable or reasonable. And for our leaders to commit to do this is an investment in ourselves.

And so this is crucially important to our future success and vital to who we want to become as an academic medical center. I'll end this by saying, do you have any comments or any thoughts that our faculty should be looking forward to in the fall about what the program is going to provide?

Dr. Jean Ann Larson: Gina. Do you want to? Um, Definitely, like I said, we're starting certainly the mid-level lead program, the pilot program, that Anupam and I've been discussing. We're also starting the Momentum Executive Women Program. But another comment I'd make for everyone is that what was remarkable to me when I first got to UAB is in addition to the programs that I've put together, I've really done an inventory of leadership development opportunities across campus. And it's impressive. And I mean, the challenge is knowing about it and finding it, but I really kind of view myself as sort of an air traffic controller. So if you're thinking, "Well, gosh, I really want to explore this leadership development stuff more." You know, literally, give me a call, drop me an email and we can sit down and literally say, "Where are you at? What are you interested in? You know, kind of what level of leadership. And we can make some recommendations of programs that you may not even be aware of, or you weren't aware that they applied to you." So, um, I would you know, welcome people and have them think about that as well. I can also offer tips on terms of, you know, how can I find a mentor? What can I do, whether it's formal or informal?

Dr. Anupam Agarwal: Along the same lines as Jean Ann, I'd like to comment that we have some outstanding mentors within the School of Medicine, great leaders, great chairs and others. We would welcome your ideas.   And if you have any thoughts on how we can do better, please reach out to me. Uh, and I would love to hear from you all.

Dr. Vickers: Well, I thank you all. I'm reminded that someone has said leadership is the ability to solve a problem without creating another one. And that is important for all of us as we work through our days. Thank you for the effort, the passion that you all have put both in mentoring and developing leaders in our community. We will all benefit from your hard work and our faculty I'm sure will be terribly appreciated. Thank you for being here.

Dr. Anupam Agarwal: Thank you.

Dr. Jean Ann Larson: Thank you.