Dylan Bould took over the role of Director of the Junior Faculty Mentorship Program in February 2021. Many thanks to Don Miller for his service as the inaugural director of this program!

For those who are unfamiliar with this program, junior faculty members (in their first 3 years) are provided support in developing a detailed academic plan, and executing this plan in the early-career phase, through regular meetings with a named faculty mentor and with a faculty advisor (usually the Mentorship Program Director). Although a University of Ottawa Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine (DAPM) initiative, until 2021 this program had only included junior faculty at the Ottawa Hospital. A change to the program is as of 2021 the mentorship program has been open to new hires at CHEO, and as of this year new hires from the Heart Institute will also be included. Support in developing an academic plan is also available to DAPM residents who are planning to apply for staff jobs in the department.

There have been 7 “graduates” from the mentorship program since 2021. These department members have made huge contributions to the DAPM in their early-career phase. In addition to many publications, grants, invited talks (listed elsewhere), higher degrees obtained and courses completed, these achievements include (but are not limited to) developing a transitional pain program and being director of acute pain at TOH (Dr Tierney); leading the residency mentorship program and being the pain medicine residency program director (Dr Alisic); being the anesthesia residency program director (Dr Mir Ghassemi); winning the DAPM mentorship award and developing POCUS (Dr McFaul); developing a POCUS training program for both residents and faculty (Dr Miller); co-leading the LUCAS conference (Dr Robert). There are currently 23 individuals in the Junior Mentorship Program – including some new hires who have yet to start as staff. We may be reaching out to you for your support as mentors for them. It’s exciting to see the ambitious academic plans of the new additions to DAPM, who are surely the future of our department!

The DAPM strongly believes in the value of mentorship, as part of lifelong learning and faculty development. A CPD accredited workshop on mentorship for DAPM was held in 2021 by Dr Paul Hendry, Vice-Dean, Continuing Professional Development (CPD). Further workshops can be scheduled if there is sufficient interest from our department. Any faculty who are interested in becoming a mentor for junior faculty in this program should contact Dylan at [email protected]