Twelve tips for medical educators to optimize their curricula vitae

Abstract

A good curriculum vitae (CV) highlights medical educators’ academic achievements and supports their professional goals. Many faculty struggle with timely updates and strategic formatting. These twelve tips will help medical educators optimize their CV to best showcase their strengths and accomplishments. The first three tips outline a process: identify a system to collect potential entries and schedule regular time for updates. Tips four and five detail how to tailor traditional CV formatting to best describe the work of medical educators. The next few tips offer concrete strategies and examples of CV entries to consider for inclusion. The remaining tips remind faculty to ask for help from colleagues, who can share a sample CV and identify overlooked activities. Our intention is to transform a task that can be burdensome into a process that seamlessly captures the breadth of our work as medical educators and allows for introspection and growth.

Keywords:

• Curriculum vitae
• clinician educator
• clinical educator
• medical educator
• academic medicine
• promotion

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Ms. Rosa Baier and Dr. Heather Cassidy for their insightful review of the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.

Notes on contributors

Rebekah L. Gardner

Rebekah L. Gardner, MD, is Associate Professor of Medicine at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, USA. She is passionate about bedside rounding, graphic medicine, and peer mentoring in academic medicine.

Stephanie Catanese

Stephanie Catanese, MD, is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, USA. She is the Associate Program Director for the Brown General Internal Medicine Residency Program and loves all things related to primary care and physician well-being.

Mindy Sobota

Mindy Sobota, MD, MS, MPhil, is Associate Professor of Medicine, Clinician Educator, at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, USA. She especially enjoys directing the Rhode Island Hospital Center for Primary Care Procedures Clinic and the Reproductive & Gender Health Clinic.

Sarita Warrier

Sarita Warrier, MD, is Associate Dean for Medical Education and Associate Professor of Medicine at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, USA. She loves medical education and training the next generation of excellent physicians.

Kate Cahill

Kate Cahill, MD, is an Associate Professor of Medicine and Medical Science, Clinician Educator, at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, USA. She is the Director of the Core Clerkship in Internal Medicine.