Here, you will find a collection of stories told by a variety of neonatologists and the various paths each took to further their careers. Click here to access the Spotlights Archives
Career Development
TECaN is preparing a goldmine of information to help guide you through your first years following training as a early career neonatologist. Whether in private practice or an academic setting, prepare yourself with these resources.
Neonatology Job Search
Once you have survived your first year of fellowship, and you’re probably starting to stress about what you have to do to find your first attending job in neonatology! We have created a job search timeline to be used as a guide to help you with the job search process. Reminder: this is simply a general guideline and not all programs will run on this same timeline, but it is a helpful resource for you to stay on track!
Additionally, the AAP Career Center has a robust listing of current job postings in pediatrics at https://jobs.pedjobs.org/ These listings can be filtered for neonatology specific job postings https://jobs.pedjobs.org/jobs/?keywords=neonatal%3B+perinatal&level=entry-level&level=experienced&sort=DATE_POSTED%20DESC
Top 10 Things to Know as a New Attending
Congratulations - You have completed your fellowship and are now a brand new attending neonatologist! The last several years of your training have been completed through a well-organized series of steps which were laid out for you. Now the rest of your career progression is up to you! We have compiled a list of helpful tips and resources you should know as a new attending - many of which are not taught in fellowship.
Featured
Hello Fellows!
The pot of gold at the end of this rainbow that we call fellowship training is the JOB of our dreams… or the JOB that one day ends up taking us to the JOB of our dreams. Sometimes it is hard to remember this as we climb up and over, across and down those colorful rainbow rotations. Take a look at this TECaN JOB Search Timeline once in a while to stay on track to get that gold pot!
Tips for the Early Career Neonatologist
As an early career neonatologist, especially as an educator, one has to juggle many academic endeavors at the same time. Many of these are unique to this career phase. Below is an article from the leaders of the Early Career Medical Educators from Canada where they consolidate their knowledge into 12 succinct tips as well as an academic one page timeline of all important dates to note and plan for in your upcoming academic year.
Navigating the Salary and Benefits Waters
One of the greatest challenges in looking for your first job is trying to make sense of the package of salary and benefits as well as the designated clinical, research and/or administrative time. Assessing salary is often challenging and discussion of salary is often a sensitive topic.
We have compiled several resources to help you start to think about the topic. It's important to remember that the salary is only part of the package that you are trying to negotiate, and you do not want to overlook other important issues, such as the protected time for research or other faculty opportunities you are offered, and the amount of clinical coverage you will be expected to contribute.
- Merritt Hawkins & Associates produces a publication offering an overview of common physician compensation models.
- The Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) produces a compensation survey report including both national and regional survey results that is available for purchase.
- The Association of American Medical Colleges website has available a report on academic physician salaries and ranges by specialty, rank and geographic region. Some program directors or department chairs may allow you access to their copy, or it can be purchased online. Your cost should be about $130.00.
- A recent article in NeoReviews by two members of the Perinatal Section, Neonatology Job Search: Looking Beyond the Dollar Signs, reviews a number of factors that should be considered when negotiating your first (or subsequent) position out of fellowship. Please go to the Report on Medical School Faculty Salaries.
Once you find your perfect job, the next step involves an agreement between your prospective employer and you. These contracts not only outline the terms of your employment, but may contain information regarding payment, termination of contract and additional rules that are standard or non-standard part of the offer. Consider engaging a contract lawyer to review these documents. The American Medical Association recently published Principles for Physician Employment that could be helpful as you are reviewing your contract.
Most importantly, make sure to talk with someone about this topic. The fellowship director and fellows who have recently completed training at your fellowship program often are great resources.
Resources for TECaN
The TECaN Council members have developed presentations with the goal of making all neonatal-perinatal medicine fellows aware of available resources, to generate enthusiasm and participation, and to disseminate information and collect feedback from fellows.
Exploring and Evaluating Practices of Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine
TECaN is also working with the AAP Career Center to plan a Neo Career Fair and to create email alerts of new neonatology PedsJobs listings. If you’re interested in helping to create resources for the job search or career planning in general we invite you to join our Career Development & Leadership committee! Email tecan@aap.org to join the listserv and get involved!
Medical Education Career Roadmap
Leadership
The TECaN Leadership Committee is focused on sharing opportunities and resources for leadership training to TECaN members. As fellows and junior faculty members traditional medical education often doesn’t sufficiently prepare us for leadership positions. The Leadership Committee hopes you’ll find the below resources and opportunities helpful. If you know of other resources to share please send them to us at tecan@aap.org with the subject line “Leadership”.
Leadership Opportunities
Consider participating in one of these nationwide leadership programs:
Leadership Education and Development (LEAD) Certificate program through AAMC is ideal for early career physicians aspiring to obtain leadership roles in health professions education.
See their website for more information.
Young Physicians Leadership Alliance Program
The Section on Early Career Physicians (SOECP) is pleased to announce the Young Physicians' Leadership Alliance (YPLA), a new 3-year training program designed to develop leaders and build a leadership community amongst early career pediatricians and pediatric subspecialists. This is an interactive forum of young physician leaders with demonstrated leadership potential through their current involvement in the AAP. The program includes the sharing of leadership principles, behaviors, and tools that can benefit early career physicians in achieving their personal and professional objectives.
Call for applications
Leadership Corner
Inspiring Interviews with Leaders in Our Field
As young physicians we can benefit greatly from the guidance from those more experienced in our field. In order to share the wisdom, we have learned from inspiring leaders, please check out our featured interviews:
Why Physician Leadership is Important to the Future
Lyndsey Garbi, MD, FAAP; Michael Prendergast, MD, FAAP; Shawn Sen, MD, FAAP; Emily Fishman, MD, FAAP & Kenneth M. Slaw, PhD (PI)
A recent presentation that discusses the following goals:
- Provide some insight into how neonatologists perceive leadership, leadership skill building, and potential learning gaps
- Understand how leadership plays a role in the day to day lives of neonatologists
- Look for potential demographic differences across gender, length of career, and work setting
- Identify critical topics in leadership for early career neonatologists
- Test an A Priori Assumption that Leadership is learned best through observation, experience, and practice
Leadership Concepts
The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership® Model Jim Kouzes & Barry Posner
Leadership is not about personality; it's about behavior—an observable set of skills and abilities. And when we first set out to discover what great leaders actually do when they are at their personal best, we collected thousands of stories from ordinary people—the experiences they recalled when asked to think of a peak leadership experience. Despite differences in culture, gender, age, and other variables, these "Personal Best" stories revealed similar patterns of behavior. In fact, we discovered that when leaders are at their personal best there are five core practices common to all: they Model the Way, inspire a Shared Vision, Challenge the Process, Enable Others to Act, and last but certainly not least, they Encourage the Heart.
Leadership Resources
Looking for leadership opportunities? Or ways to get involved within your institution or the AAP? Check out this detailed listing, complete with position descriptions, resources and upcoming leadership-based events.