Among my many failures was my inability to provide mentorship for junior faculty at Stanford in the early 2000s. My chair, Dr. Ron Pearl, asked that I meet with faculty who were joining our newly launched “clinician and educator” professoriate line. Faculty recruited into our clinician-educator line were outstanding clinicians. They were uniformly eager to establish an academic career at Stanford. I was tasked with providing guidance and montorship.
As a professor in the University Tenure Line, my perspective of scholarship was limited. I understood research, building and running a laboratory, and securing funding from both peer-reviewed and industry sources. I had mentored dozens of my own fellows. I thought I understood mentorship.
I met with every member of our burgeoning clinician-educator faculty, discussed their career goals, and asked them to envision where they wanted to be in 10 years. Most emphasized honing their clinical skills and contributing through education....
