Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/128749
mentoring by Susan Reich NURTURING THE FUTURE of Academic Medicine A new faculty mentoring program formalizes the College of Medicine's time-honored tradition of guiding, inspiring and empowering the next generation T imothy Erickson, MD, still remembers the day he met his longtime mentor, Daniel Hryhorczuk, MD, MPH, a professor of medical toxicology and environmental health at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Erickson had just completed his emergency medicine residency training, and Hryhorczuk was a board-certified toxicologist launching a new fellowship program in medical toxicology. Erickson was his first fellow. "Within minutes, I knew that this was a person I could work with," Erickson says. "He was down to earth, very intelligent, incredibly humble, unassuming and nurturing, with a tactful sense of humor. Over the next two years, he mentored me in the clinical applications of toxicology, taught me how to do research and write grants and encouraged me to assume leadership roles. He literally launched my career." Although the toxicology fellowship ended after 24 months, the mentoring relationship between Hryhorczuk and Erickson has continued for 24 years, with weekly and sometimes daily meetings. "Every faculty member needs a mentor," says Erickson, now a full 18 | SPring 2013 professor of emergency medicine and toxicology, associate dean for faculty affairs and director of the college's Center for Global Health. "We should always be students, we should always be hungry to learn more and we should always have someone we can strive to emulate." That philosophy is at the heart of the Faculty Mentoring Program launched at the College of Medicine in Chicago last September. Given Erickson's personal experience with the myriad benefits of mentoring, it seems fitting that he has been selected by Dean Dimitri T. Azar, MD, MBA, to oversee the committee responsible for the program's development and implementation. The new program represents the fulfillment of a longharbored dream for Azar, who has personally mentored more than 100 clinical and research postdoctoral fellows and countless residents. "Since he assumed his position, faculty mentoring has been a top priority for Dean Azar," Erickson says. "A recent universitywide mandate to create formal mentoring opportunities for all junior faculty members paved the way for him to move ahead with this program—and we are excited about the opportunities that it will create for our faculty." Erickson notes that the program, which is being rolled out at all four College of Medicine campuses in the coming year, will support the career development of both tenure- and non-tenure-track faculty members. "This mentoring program will show our junior faculty members,