Evolving Your Path: Building a Meaningful Clinician Educator Career – Co-Sponsored by the Geisel Academy of Educators and Scholars

This educational session explores career development for clinician educators through reflection, discussion, and hands-on activities. Participants will identify personal and professional values and examine five educator roles: teaching, assessment, curriculum design, mentoring, and leadership. Using design thinking and AI, participants will brainstorm and prototype career pathways aligned with their strengths, experiences, and aspirations. The session also addresses evolving professional identity, mentorship and sponsorship, educator competencies, formal development opportunities, and the role of scholarship in career advancement. Participants will develop strategies to build meaningful, individualized career pathways that align professional growth with personal values and interests.

Presenter

Valerie Lang, MD, MHPE
Professor of Medicine - Hospital Medicine Division
University of Rochester

Valerie Lang, MD, MHPE, is Professor of Medicine in the Hospital Medicine Division at the University of Rochester. She serves as Senior Associate Division Chief and directs the faculty development program in Hospital Medicine. She also directs the University of Rochester’s UR Mentor LAB group peer mentoring program and the Department of Medicine’s Medical Education Research and Scholarship office and co-directs the University of Rochester’s interprofessional Academy of Educators. She is the Academic Director for Assessment of Clinical Decision Making at Aquifer, a nonprofit organization providing virtual medical education to most US medical schools. Her research interests focus on medical education, including faculty development, professional identity formation, and teaching and assessment of clinical reasoning.

Download the slides HERE.

1. Articulate their personal and professional values as they relate to their career as a clinician educator.
2. Apply design thinking principles and use AI to identify at least three distinct career trajectories aligned with their values.
3. Identify relevant resources and actionable next steps to advance their chosen career paths.

In support of improving patient care, Dartmouth Health is jointly accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME), the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE), and the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC), to provide continuing education for the healthcare team. 

American Medical Association (AMA)
Dartmouth Health designates this Enduring Material for a maximum of 0.75 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity. 

All other learners may claim CME-designated participation credit. Consult your professional licensing board regarding the applicability and acceptance of CME-designated participation credit for programs certified for credit by organizations accredited by Joint Accreditation for Interprofessional Education.

Registration/Requirements for Successful Completion
You may claim credit for successful completion of this online course. In order to claim credit, you must follow these steps:

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6. Complete and Submit the Evaluation.

Bibliographic Sources

• Boyer EL. Scholarship reconsidered: priorities of the professoriate. Carnegie Foundation, 1990.

• Burnett B, Evans D. Designing your life: how to make a well-lived, joyful life. Knopf. 2016.

• Chopra V, Arora VM, Saint S. Will you be my mentor?—Four archetypes to help mentees succeed in academic medicine. JAMA internal medicine. 2018 Feb;178(2).

• DeCastro R et al. Mentor networks in academic medicine: Moving beyond a dyadic conception of mentoring for junior faculty researchers. Acad Med;2013(88):488-96.

• Glassick CE. Scholarship assessed: evaluation of the professoriate. Carnegie Foundation, 1997.

• Kieffer KA, Carluzzo KL, Albert D. Unmet Mentorship Needs in Academic Internal Medicine: A Survey of Faculty Affiliated with a U.S. Medical School. J Gen Intern Med. 2026 Feb;41(3):642-649. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11606-025-09665-6. Epub 2025 Jul 22. PMID: 40696224; PMCID: PMC12960287.

• Kulo V, Cestone C. A CPD imperative? Examining trends and characteristics of HPE doctoral programs. BMC Medical Education (2022) 22:853.

• Lown B, et al. Acad Med, 2009. Yang Y et al. JGME, 2023. McMains KC, TLM, 2023. Coates W et al. Acad Med. Heck A et al. MSE, 2024.

• Sambunjak D, Marusic A. Mentoring: What's in a name? JAMA;2009(23):2591-2.

• Schermerhorn J, Wilcox S, Durning S et al. Masters in health professions education programs as they choose to represent themselves: A website review [version 2]. MedEdPublish 2023, 13:13 (https://doi.org/10.12688/mep.19498.2)

• Varpio L et al. Professional identity formation metaphors: old problems and new promises. Perspect Med Educ. 2025;14(1):219-229.

• Wray CM. Crafting a successful career in academic medicine: lessons for an aspiring academic. JGIM. 2025.

• Zaeri, R., Gandomkar, R. Developing entrustable professional activities for doctoral graduates in health professions education: obtaining a national consensus in Iran. BMC Med Educ22, 424 (2022).

Provider Contact Information
Provider contact information for questions regarding accreditation of the activity:

Center for Learning and Professional Development
ACE Office
Dartmouth Health
[email protected]

Mitigation of Relevant Financial Relationships

Dartmouth Health adheres to the ACCME’s Standards for Integrity and Independence in Accredited Continuing Education.  Any individuals in a position to control the content of a CE activity, including planners, faculty, authors, or others are required to disclose all financial relationships with ineligible companies^.  All relevant financial relationships have been mitigated prior to the commencement of the activity.

^Ineligible Company is any entity whose primary business purpose is producing, marketing, selling, re-selling or distributing healthcare products used by or on patients.