The speaker exchange program: Cooking up sponsorship strategies to raise the professional visibility of junior faculty.

Abstract

Sponsorship-direct action (beyond mentorship) by professionals to promote the interests of junior colleagues-catalyzes career advancement but is not always available to junior faculty. This results from the relative youth of hospital medicine as a specialty (and its small pool of senior hospitalist sponsors) and heavy clinical loads, often without protected time for academic pursuits. Our reciprocal institutional Speaker Exchange Program (SEP) is a model for junior faculty to sponsor colleagues and mentees. The SEP combines creative promotion, including freshly baked cookie boxes for conference attendees with links to our list of junior faculty talks, to supplement traditional sponsorship and faculty development strategies.