*** Prepare for Promotion Now ***

Tips for organizing your files to help your professional life runsmoothly

You will keep files on many things as you progress through the years as a faculty member. Consider keeping specific files on the topics listed below. The list below is not meant to be exhaustive. Instead, it focuses on information that will be critical for updating your CV, for documenting your achievements for promotion, and may be requested in grant applications or for nominations for awards.

Suggested files to keep

Administration

  • Keep files on committee membership.Participating in administrative and leadership activities is an important way to contribute as a good citizen of the academic community, and to develop the local, national or international reputation needed for promotion. Include activities both within the institution, and outside (e.g. NIH, professional societies, community).

Annual Review/Assessment

  • It’s good practice to check in with your Division Chief or Department Chair at least annually so that s/he knows what you are working on, and can give you feedback about your progress toward promotion. To make this easier on your leader, consider creating a one page executive summary that highlights your important activities over the past year. Think of it like an annual holiday letter; a snapshot of your work over the year. Keep track of these one-pagers year after year in this folder.

Awards/Recognitions/Kudos

  • Keep a file on how others have recognized you. It’s helpful to develop some modest habits of self promotion so that your busy colleagues know what you do, and what your niche is. Include notes of thanks or congratulations on a significant achievement, or letters from patients thanking you for your care. These papers are useful in documenting your impact when it is time for promotion.Also, be sure to let your Division Chief and Department Chair know about your significant accomplishments. They might appreciate being kept in the “good news” loop.

Continuing Education Activities

  • Keep your CME records in one place to make it easier to produce this information when requested. You will need to document your CME activitieseach time you renew your physician’s license (just before your birthday each year).You need 60 hours of Category 1 CME credits every 3 years in North Carolina. The revised CME rules (effective 8/1/12) eliminate the requirement to report any category 2 CME hours. For renewal, you will be asked to list dates, locations and numbers of credits for your CME activities.
  • Housed on the Duke Continuning Medical Education siteis access to Duke CE Portal where you can register for classes (called activities in EthosCE), track your Continuing Medical Education (CME) credits and print your own certificates and transcripts. EthosCE, from DLC Solutions, is a browser-based Learning Management System (LMS).
  • Before you register/enroll for any course on the Duke CE Portal you must set up a profile with a valid ID/Password.

Correspondence/Networking

  • This is where you file letters from people you might want to contact later, people who don’t yet need a separate file, but who might be good contacts for collaboration, for networking, or who you might invite to give a talk.
  • Include people who might serve as references for your eventual promotion.
  • Include people who might go on a “good news list”, to whom you might send a recent publication, or notice of a new position or promotion.

Mentor/Advisor Activities

  • When you update your CV, or write certain grants, you will want to list the people you have mentored over the years. Keep information about these people in a file(s). Include names, contact information, dates you worked with them, and their role when you worked with them (student, resident, junior faculty etc). Plan on touching base with them periodically so that you can list their current positions. Documenting their success is one way to document your success as a mentor.

Teaching

  • Keep all evaluations, notes from students or from course organizers, letters, cards and emails giving you positive feedback on your talk.
  • Similarly, keep track of curriculum development activities, including materials you have developed, curriculum committees you have served on etc. Note, there may be some overlap here with “Scholarly Activities” file below. Doesn’t matter. As long as these things have a home.

Long-term Goals

  • Some people go through the process of evaluating their goals and dreams every so often. This would be a good place for those thought exercises.

Privileges/Credentials

  • Keep track of paperwork for: PDC privileges, Hospital privileges (may be multiple hospitals), DEA renewal, NC Medical Board Registration, NC Department of Revenue Privilege license, Board (re)certification, etc.

Presentations

  • Keep a separate file for each talk, with its own label, date and location. Ditto for abstracts. This will make updating your CV much easier. Organize these in your CV according to location of talk (Duke, local community, regional, national and international).

Publications

  • Keep a separate file for each publication so that in the end you have a file that contains each publication in final form, and any other useful information about the process.

Scholarly Activities

  • This file is for other scholarly activities besides publications and talks. Examples include consensus conferences, advisory boards, thesis committees, curriculum development groups etc.

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Version Date: October 2014

Office for Faculty Development, Duke University School of Medicine, DUMC Box 3611919.684.4139