An Innovative Faculty Travel Award Program to Support Child, Elder, or Dependent Care.

This study observes how a travel award program that supports child, elder, or dependent care affected university faculty members.

The New Academic Environment and Faculty Misconduct.

Faculty members are expected to abide by codes of conduct that are delineated in institutional policies and to behave ethically when engaging in scientific pursuits. As federal funds for research decrease, faculty members face increasing pressure to sustain their research activities, and many have developed new collaborations and pursued new entrepreneurial opportunities. As research collaborations increase, however, there may be competition to get credit as the first person to develop ideas, make new discoveries, and/or publish new findings. This increasingly competitive academic environment may contribute to intentional or unintentional faculty misconduct. The authors, who work in the Dean's Office at a large U.S. medical school (University of California, San Francisco), investigate one to two cases of alleged misconduct each month. These investigations, which are stressful and unpleasant, may culminate in serious disciplinary action for the faculty member. Further, these allegations sometimes result in lengthy and acrimonious civil litigation. This Perspective provides three examples of academic misconduct: violations of institutional conflict-of-interest policies, disputes about intellectual property, and authorship conflicts.The authors also describe prevention and mitigation strategies that their medical school employs, which may be helpful to other institutions. Prevention strategies include training campus leaders, using attestations to reduce violations of institutional policies, encouraging open discussion and written agreements about individuals' roles and responsibilities, and defining expectations regarding authorship and intellectual property at the outset. Mitigation strategies include using mediation by third parties who do not have a vested academic, personal, or financial interest in the outcome.

Preventing and managing unprofessionalism in medical school faculties.

Professionalism is a required competency for medical students, residents, practicing physicians, and academic faculty. Faculty members must adhere to codes of conduct or risk discipline. The authors describe issues of unprofessionalism that culminate in allegations of faculty misconduct or filing of grievances in academic medicine and outline strategies for early intervention and prevention. The authors, vice and associate deans and executive director of the office of faculty affairs at a large U.S. medical school, have handled many allegations of unprofessional conduct over the past decade. They present case examples based on behaviors such as lack of respect, inappropriate language and behavior, failure to cooperate with members of the health care team, and sexual harassment/discrimination. They discuss factors complicating evaluation of these behaviors, including variable definitions of respect, different cultural norms, and false allegations. The authors make recommendations for prevention and intervention, including early identification, performance management, education about sexual harassment, and referrals to professional coaches, anger management classes, and faculty-staff assistance programs.