Presenting to Medical Residents

The importance of Faculty Positions

One of the best and most important ways to catapult you and your office is to obtain a faculty position at a local medical school.  This is not as difficult as you may think, especially since the Interprofessional Mandate of 2015 came down from the ACCME, which is similar to our CCE and governs medical education in the United States. 

Here is the introduction verbiage you need to start the conversation.  This goes to the Director of the Family Practice Residency Program at the closest Medical School or Osteopathy School.  They are looking for opportunities so that will be looking for you IF you present yourself properly and hit up the right people.  This is serious and you will be working at the highest levels of academia so make sure you look good when you meet.  A suit that fits you properly, a haircut and facial hair shaved or trimmed.  Look like you are a leader and be yourself. This is the verbiage, I sent this to Dr. Stanczak a while back.   I am discussing how administrators communicate and it is rare to get anyone on the phone these days, WAY too much going on.  Remember, it is a sound bite world. 

Jason,

In today’s environment they either text or email.  Everything else is a waste of time.  Sometimes there is an assistant or a secretary.  Introduce yourself ask for her email. I always like to do a bit of research on the doctor and see what they look like, my experience is that it reduces stress and intimidation factors when reaching out.    Please make sure you read their bio online and understand where they come from and where they received their training.

Please send Dr. ______ the following email, from YOU…Address HIM/HER as Dr. ______ (a respectful formality) and you as Jason Stanczak.  Once the first email is over then everything is on a first name basis.  You are colleagues from that point forward.  My observations are that is the process that the MDs follow, so it makes sense to communicate with them in a similar fashion.  It is considered bad form to use the title DOCTOR amongst other doctors.

Here is the verbiage –

Dear Dr. ________,

I received your information from the University Website and I am hoping you might be the person to help me.  I am working with Dr. Bill Owens, who is an Adjunct Faculty member in the Family Practice Department at the University of Buffalo (UB) School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences up in Buffalo.  Our focus is to create interprofessional education opportunities between chiropractic and family medicine.  Bill is also a chiropractor and has created a chiropractic elective for UB in family medicine and was recently given the green light to create a similar opportunity for neurology residents.  The elective works as a 1-2 week clinical rotation within a modern chiropractic office who’s focus is on the diagnosis and management of biomechanical sources of pain in the human spine.  Since spine pain is a major epidemiological issue in our country, this is a wonderful opportunity to learn from each other, ultimately benefiting the community and creating a relevant opportunity for interprofessional education. 

What I would like to suggest before we go that far is a short introductory chiropractic presentation to the Family Practice Residents during assigned lecture time.  I am very flexible and can make time to be on site when it is appropriate.  I do not have the contact name or email of the Chief Resident for your department, but I would like to reach out to them to see if there might be an opportunity to schedule a presentation, if you could forward their contact information.  Thank you for your help.  Jason

This is the first in the volley of emails, but once you have the contact information of the Chief Resident, please call me at 716-228-3847 or email me at dr.owens@academyofchiropractic.com and I will help you work through the rest.  The Chief Resident is the contact for that group of doctors, remember they graduate medical school as MDs but they are not Board Certified yet.  The Chief Resident is the leader and handles all the “work” that is associated with that Residency Program.  It is a good title, but a huge PITA, it is a CV builder so they are always eager to work on new opportunities. 

I have the entire powerpoint lecture for you already completed and I will send to you as requested and train you on what to say and do.  There has never been a better opportunity to TEACH MDs about chiropractic than there is now…Embrace it or someone else will, it is just a matter of time.