Aug. 22, 2023 — When Mark Segal, M.D., Ph.D., began his first day of work at the University of Florida College of Medicine 24 years ago, his team was not expecting him, he did not have an office ready and he lacked an introduction to the tools he needed to hit the ground running as a physician-scientist in a new environment.

“It wasn’t that warm and fuzzy feeling you want when you move your family across the country to start off on this great adventure,” said Segal, who relocated from Massachusetts to join the college in 1999 and now serves as the senior associate dean for faculty affairs and professional development.

At that time, while a University of Florida orientation was available to College of Medicine faculty, no event existed specifically to help new faculty members like Segal get acclimated to the environment and available resources at the College of Medicine. Four years ago, a first attempt at an orientation tailored to the College of Medicine was created but there were opportunities to expand upon it with a more structured approach.

Now, as part of plans to reimagine the entire onboarding process for new faculty at the College of Medicine, the Office of Faculty Affairs & Professional Development and Human Resources have partnered with the Office of the Dean to orchestrate a revamped orientation experience that aims to set the tone for faculty joining the college community. New Faculty Retreat: Resources for Success, a project under the people pillar of the college’s strategic plan, will bring clinical and research faculty together to gain exposure to the people, processes and philosophy of the College of Medicine. The first event will take place at the George T. Harrell, M.D., Medical Education Building on Sept. 20, with future events occurring in August, November and April each academic year.

The format of the faculty orientation was designed with intention by the project team, which consists of Segal as well as Aigi Adesogan, the associate director of human resources at the college; Richanne Lamb, a senior project manager in the Office of the Dean; Ashley Spink, the assistant director of administrative services in the Office of the Dean; and Jennifer Munroe, a human resources specialist at the college. Project team consultants included clinical and basic science faculty and experts in communications, operations and continuing medical education.

The event will kick off with welcome remarks from college and hospital leadership and brief TED Talk-style presentations from key areas. An extended lunch break will feature a resource fair with representatives from various centers, offices and vendors, from the benefits team, UF Self-Insurance Program and UF Innovate to UF RecSports, the UF Athletic Association and the College of Medicine Wellness Programs.

The orientation will conclude with breakout sessions tailored to clinical and research faculty, with the former engaging in topics such as clinical trials and continuing medical education and the latter discussing themes including opportunities for grant funding and leveraging artificial intelligence in basic science research at UF.

“One of the things I think is exciting is the engagement faculty get to have with leadership,” Adesogan said. “Some are going to be new in their careers, and connecting with senior faculty and administrators is important for early-career professionals in any field. They will also get to engage with each other during breakout sessions, where they can create informal networks. They will hopefully leave this event with excitement about this new place they’ll come to call home and the message of, ‘We support you, we’re invested in you and we’re committed to your success.’”

To create a framework for the project, members of the team attended a previous orientation to get a sense of what gaps needed to be filled and spent several months benchmarking with other institutions and gathering quantitative and qualitative data.

“The initiative was shaped by feedback from the Association of American Medical Colleges StandPoint Faculty Engagement Survey, insights from previous faculty orientation attendees and targeted focus group discussions,” said Lamb, who led research efforts. “Gathering feedback was really important to the success of this initiative. We used the feedback from our faculty to give the orientation a fresh, innovative spin. I believe we’ve set a standard that could be a game-changer not just here, but nationally.”

The goal is for the College of Medicine orientation to complement the university’s orientation, the team shared, and faculty are welcome to attend both. With the launch of the first iteration coming soon, the team is also looking for feedback to continuously improve the experience for future faculty.

“People are going to get a feel for our big ‘Why’ — why we as an organization exist and where we want to go in the future,” Segal said. “They’re going to get information specific to what they need to be successful as clinical faculty and research faculty, and they’re going to be introduced to many people who will be important on their journey. Our hope is that it will jumpstart their career and make it a much smoother onboarding experience, so they can be more productive and start doing what they came here to do more quickly.”