faculty development – UofL News Mon, 20 Apr 2026 15:43:07 +0000 en-US hourly 1 LIAM program bridges HSC and Belknap Campuses to cultivate faculty leaders /post/uofltoday/liam-program-bridges-hsc-and-belknap-campuses-to-cultivate-faculty-leaders/ Fri, 07 Aug 2020 14:59:26 +0000 http://www.uoflnews.com/?p=50967 The third cohort of the Leadership and Innovation in Academic Medicine (LIAM) program completed an 11-month course to develop faculty leaders by presenting their projects designed to improve academic work or health care at the University of Louisville. LIAM is one of the most popular programs offered by the HSC Office of Faculty Development.

The 25 members of the class of 2019-2020, organized in five teams, outlined plans for improving faculty research productivity, patient access, employee recognition, communication and active learning in July. This was the first LIAM class to include faculty from the Belknap Campus.

The mission of the program is to develop the next generation of leaders at UofL by teaching them the skills needed first to lead themselves, then lead with others and finally, lead an organization. Faculty members enroll in an 11-month training program that includes regular discussions and the capstone team projects.

Gerard Rabalais, M.D., M.H.A.
Gerard Rabalais, M.D., M.H.A.

“Leadership is a set of skills that you can practice. It’s not something you are born with or not born with, but there is a set of definable skills, and with any skill, if you practice it, you get better at it,” said Gerard Rabalais, who developed and directs the LIAM program with Staci Saner.

LIAM originally was designed as a program for faculty in the School of Medicine, but has evolved quickly to include faculty members across the university.

“Our five-year goal is for 15% of the faculty at the Health Sciences Center campus to complete this program. Once you get to that tipping point, synergy is going to start to kick in,” Rabalais said. “That is the result of the cross-disciplinary relationships that develop, meet and work with people they would never have worked with before from different departments or across colleges. Now that we have increased interest from faculty on the Belknap Campus, with 16 people completing the program by July 2021, we likely will set the same target for Belknap Campus.”

During the event, the program’s fourth cohort of 40 faculty members was introduced. It is the largest class in the program’s history and includes 11 members from Belknap Campus and nine from Health Sciences Center schools other than the School of Medicine.

Projects and team members in the LIAM class of 2019-2020:

Improving Faculty Research Productivity: David Brown, Linda Fuselier, Brandon McCormack, Susan Ryan, Siobhan Smith-Jones

Patient Access at UofL Physicians: Jennifer Daily, Luz Huntington-Moskos, Marija Sasek, Maria Mendoza, Rodolfo Zamora

Employee Recognition: HimaBindu Dukka, Arpita Lakhotia, W. David Lohr, Suzanne McGee, Michael Sweeney

Communication: Brit Anderson, Tamer Mohamed, Kimberly Pate, William Tse

Driving Active Learning: Michael Egger, James Harrison, Chithra Ram, Jennifer Stiff, Tracy VanMeter, Beverly Williams-Coleman

LIAM program class of 2020-2021:

  • Jason Gainous Arts & Sciences
  • Kandi Walker Arts & Sciences
  • Regina Roebuck Arts & Sciences
  • Benjamin Mast Arts & Sciences
  • Kevin Gawley Arts & Sciences
  • Dawn Heinecken Arts & Sciences
  • Amy Flint ֱ and Human Development
  • Douglas Craddock ֱ and Human Development
  • Andrew McCart ֱ and Human Development
  • Ishwanzya Rivers ֱ and Human Development
  • Brigitte Burpo ֱ and Human Development
  • Jill Steinbach-Rankins Speed School of Engineering
  • Matthew Fox Medicine
  • Adam Ross Medicine
  • Ashley Iles Medicine
  • April Herrity Medicine
  • Beatrice Ugiliweneza Medicine
  • Timothy Ford Medicine
  • Siddharth Shah Medicine
  • Becca Hart Medicine
  • Kelly Jackson Medicine
  • Sunnye Mayes Medicine
  • Jeff Meyer Medicine
  • Courtney Smith Medicine
  • Joshua Sparks Medicine
  • Rebecca Starr Seal Medicine
  • Amanda LeBlanc Medicine
  • Leslie Sherwood Medicine
  • Samuel Carson Medicine
  • Clayton Tyler Ellis Medicine
  • Kellen Choi Medicine
  • Cynethia Bethel-Jaiteh Nursing
  • Muna Hammash Nursing
  • Imelda Wright Nursing
  • J’Aime Jennings Public Health and Information Sciences
  • Brian Marrillia Dentistry
  • Lavina Myers Dentistry
  • Juhi Bagaitkar Dentistry
  • Gill Diamond Dentistry
  • Ashley King-Tinsley Dentistry

 

]]> UofL School of Medicine faculty complete leadership training /post/uofltoday/uofl-school-of-medicine-faculty-complete-leadership-training/ /post/uofltoday/uofl-school-of-medicine-faculty-complete-leadership-training/#respond Thu, 26 Jul 2018 13:24:35 +0000 http://uoflnews.com/?p=43184 Sixteen members of the University of Louisville School of Medicine faculty have completed a 10-month training program aimed at developing effective future leaders in academic medicine. Leadership and Innovation in Academic Medicine (LIAM) was designed to develop innovative thinking skills in early to mid-career faculty who are motivated to be leaders in medical education.

“Leadership is more important than ever as the university prepares to deal with changes in our health care world. Our leaders need to have the resilience and creativity and the ability to be innovative and problem solve as challenges keep coming,” said Gerard Rabalais, MD, M.H.A., associate dean of faculty development, who created the program along with Staci Saner, MEd, program manager for faculty development.

“We need to deepen our bench here at the university,” said Tracy Eells, PhD, MBA, vice provost for faculty affairs, at the program’s final event on July 17. “We need to have a deep set of leaders that we can turn to because there are a lot of leadership positions at the university.”

The participants attended monthly meetings organized to introduce innovation and design thinking through understanding how to lead oneself, how to lead others and how to lead the organization.

Jeremy Clark, MD, assistant professor in the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, most values the connections he made with other participants.

“The single most impactful aspect of LIAM is therelationships Ibuiltwith each of my peers and with our physician leaders in the School of Medicine. I now have 15 other young leaders that I can go to and ask for advice and counsel when I am struggling with leadership problems,” Clark said.

Hugh Shoff, MD, assistant professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine, expected the program to help him acquire tools for becoming a better leader and innovator in medicine. He was surprised by the value of the self-reflection aspect.

“We spent lot of time in the beginning learning to analyze yourself and make sure you as a person are in the right place to become a better leader. I didn’t expect to spend as much time on that, but I am glad we did,” Shoff said.

Eells said self-leadership is a critical aspect of the program’s three-stage approach.

“It has to start with yourself, with emotional intelligence, knowing how to keep your cool when you are in a tense situation since you are serving as a role model to many others around you when you are serving in a leadership capacity,” Eells said.

The self-reflection portion will be expanded for the second LIAM cohort, which will increase from 16 to 24 members.

At the program’s final meeting, teams of four participants presented projects to improve the school or health care in general and presented them to a panel of judges, leaders from the UofL School of Medicine, and members of the 2018-2019 cohort were announced.

2018-19 LIAM cohort

Pascale Alard, PhD Microbiology and Immunology
Thomas Altstadt, MD Neurosurgery
Laura Bishop, MD Medicine
Eric Burton, MD Neurology
Camilo Castillo, MD Neurosurgery
Priya Chandan, MD, MPH Neurosurgery
Brittany Chapman, MD Neurology
Lynzee Cornell, PhD Otolaryngology and Communicative Disorders
Russell Farmer, MD Surgery
Shahab Ghafghazi, MD Medicine
Josephine Gomes, MD Family and Geriatric Medicine
Sushil Gupta, MD Pediatrics
Ahmed Haddad, MD, PhD Urology
Jennifer Hamm, MD Obstetrics, Gynecology and Women’s Health
David Haustein, MD Neurosurgery
Bridget Hittepole, MD Medicine
Deborah Kozik, MD Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery
Rana Latif, MD Anesthesiology
Jennifer Le, MD Pediatrics
Eli Pendleton, MD Family and Geriatric Medicine
Melissa Potts, MD Radiology
Vikas Singh, MD Medicine
Abigail Stocker, MD Medicine
Christina Terrell, MD Psychiatry

2017-2018 LIAM class projects

Increasing the Value of Academic Teaching

Academic teaching is a core mission for UofL School of Medicine faculty that is difficult to quantify in terms of scholarly recognition. The definition and documentation of good teaching is lacking. Our project proposes a structured way of accounting for teaching in an easily accessible system, and ideas for a culture shift towards recognition of teaching excellence as a critical mission for the university. Team members:Alexander Ovechkin, MD, PhD, Christine Brady, PhD, Elizabeth Cash, PhD, Kathrin LaFaver, MD.

A Better PICC Line

The project focuses on the creation of a PICC line that is tamper-evident for use in patients who have a history of IV drug use and require long-term antibiotic therapy for conditions such as bacterial endocarditis. The hope is that use of this PICC line will allow these patients to transition home for IV antibiotics in lieu of prolonged hospital stays to complete the antibiotics course. Team members:Farid Kehdy, MD, Hugh Shoff, MD, Laura Workman, MD, Luz Fernandez, MD.

Mind the Gap: Using Generational Strengths to Create Faculty-Student Teaching Partnerships
Many University of Louisville Health Sciences Center faculty struggle to adapt their teaching to include new educational pedagogies due to lack of time, variable prioritization of teaching and difficulty using new technology. We propose the creation of student-faculty partnerships where the faculty – our content experts – can use the technical savvy and availability of students to modify and improve their teaching. We plan to pilot this initiative as part of the Medical Students as Teachers elective for fourth year medical students and measure change in course evaluations, student satisfaction and faculty well-being. Team members:Leah Siskind, PhD, Sara Multerer, MD, Sara Petruska, MD, Tyler Sharpe, MD.

Financial Empowerment
Leaders in academic medicine are frequently ill prepared to make the financial decisions that are a necessary part of their jobs. There is currently a gap between finance officersat senior levels and leaders at lower levels who lead clinical, research or educationteams. Our proposed innovation is to empower leaders across the University of Louisville School of Medicine to make financial decisions by providing local, focused financial training to leaders. Team members:Carolyn Roberson, PhD, Adrienne Jordan, MD, Brian Holland, MD, Jeremy Clark, MD.

]]> /post/uofltoday/uofl-school-of-medicine-faculty-complete-leadership-training/feed/ 0 UofL developing leaders in academic medicine through LIAM program /post/uofltoday/uofl-developing-leaders-in-academic-medicine-through-liam-program/ /post/uofltoday/uofl-developing-leaders-in-academic-medicine-through-liam-program/#respond Fri, 29 Sep 2017 15:24:13 +0000 http://uoflnews.com/?p=38552 The University of Louisville School of Medicine is training its future leaders.

Sixteen members of the UofL School of Medicine faculty began a 10-month training program on Sept. 21, aimed at developing future leaders for academic medical institutions. Leadership and Innovation in Academic Medicine (LIAM) is designed to develop innovative thinking skills in early to mid-career faculty who may be interested in pursuing leadership roles in the future.

“This program will equip the future leaders of the UofL School of Medicine with the foundational platform to build their leadership skills for the rest of their careers,” said Gerard Rabalais, MD, MHA, associate dean of faculty development.

Participants will attend monthly three-hour meetings, work independently and prepare interdisciplinary projects designed to improve some aspect of the school. Leaders in the UofL School of Medicine, as well as faculty from the UofL College of Business, College of ֱ and Human Development and members of the business community, will lead the monthly meetings. The curriculum will address leading oneself, leading others and leading an organization, all focused on leadership challenges specific to academic medicine.

“I hope they gain an appreciation for the importance of emotional intelligence, and an understanding that the key role of the leader is to provide more than operational effectiveness, but to cast the vision and devise the innovation strategy that provides new and sustainable value to the academic medical center and the communities we serve,” Rabalais said.

The 2017-18 participants, below, were selected from 54 applicants. Rabalais and Staci Saner, MEd, program manager of faculty development, part of the Office of Faculty Affairs and Advancement, developed the curriculum.

“We anticipate that the innovative solutions they develop as part of their projects will be directly applicable to current challenges in the School,” Rabalais said.

The 2017 class of LIAM

Christine Brady, PhD – Pediatrics
Elizabeth Cash, PhD – Otolaryngology-HNS & Communicative Disorders
Jeremy Clark, MD – Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences
Luz Fernandez, MD – Family Medicine
Brian Holland, MD – Pediatric Cardiology
Adrienne Jordan, MD – Pathology
Farid Kehdy, MD – Surgery
Kathrin LaFaver, MD – Neurology
Sara Multerer, MD – Pediatrics
Alexander V. Ovechkin, MD, PhD – Neurological Surgery
Sara Petruska, MD – Ob/Gyn and Women’s Health
Carolyn Roberson, PhD – Microbiology and Immunology
Tyler Sharpe, MD – Internal Medicine
Hugh Shoff, MD – Department of Emergency Medicine
Leah J. Siskind, PhD – Pharmacology and Toxicology
Laura Workman, MD – Internal Medicine-Pediatrics

]]> /post/uofltoday/uofl-developing-leaders-in-academic-medicine-through-liam-program/feed/ 0