RAMS Leadership Development Training

The “Interpersonal Relationships, Teamwork, and Leadership in Academic Medicine” component of the RAMS curriculum was launched in the spring of 2019.

Developed and delivered by Daryn David, Ph.D. (faculty, Yale School of Medicine), this 2-year course recognizes that RAM Scholars “…are going to shape how academic medicine looks 20 and 30 years from now.” The course encourages Scholars to embrace this reality by considering the leadership attributes they would like to embody as they move through the RAMS program and onward toward their next professional chapter.

This strengths- and assets-based leadership development curriculum is delivered through webinars and at our biennial retreats. Integrating components that are didactic and experiential, the course centers on fostering the Scholars’ awareness of their communication patterns and interpersonal impact, the elements of teaming and team-building they most aspire to create, and their strengths and preferred approaches to leading and guiding others.

During the first full year that the course was delivered, the pandemic struck and the social justice movement in the United States was reinvigorated. In response, Dr. David has tried to ensure that the course material remains timely and relevant to social challenges. In addition to helping Scholars develop more standard leadership skills, Dr. David has woven in material focused on advocacy in the health professions and ways of leading during moments of uncertainty. She also recognizes the importance and value in asking, “Are we talking about diversity enough? Are we talking about equity and inclusion both in terms of when people are working clinically – how they are treating their patients but also how they are thinking about those questions when they are going to move into leadership roles in academic medicine? How are they considering the experiences of someone who are is different than them?”

To not only help develop leaders but also nurture their budding sense of community with one another, Dr. David is particularly conscious of making sure that there is time during class meetings for the RAM Scholars to share and support one another around their current experiences working in academic medicine.

Overall, the aspiration of the “Interpersonal Relationships, Teamwork, and Leadership in Academic Medicine” course is for Scholars to “leave with a better sense that they are leaders (and) that they can be leaders, and they have a community to support them in that.”

(Feature Note: All quotes and comments regarding the Leadership Development training were from direct conversations with Dr. David.)

Feature written by Sophia Ly, MS