University of Cincinnati Law professor Verna Williams especially loves her interdisciplinary work. She and professor Kristin Brandser joined the college, in part, to expand its existing joint degree program in law and Women's Studies. The capstone experience for this four-year program is in a public-interest externship in which Williams and Brandser supervise students working at national nonprofit organizations, like the National Women's Law Center in Washington, D.C., where Williams worked before joining the faculty five years ago.

Among the responsibilities law professor Verna Williams has outside the classroom is serving as faculty adviser for the Black Law Students Association. She appreciates the combination of work her job provides: "It's wonderful that I can satisfy my desire to delve deeper into issues in an intellectual and theoretical way, but also get to provide practical help. It's really the best job ever."

photo/Lisa Ventre

She is also working with the Ford Foundation "to revitalize the women's movement" and serves as a faculty adviser for a new journal that partners with Cincinnati's National Underground Railroad Freedom Center Museum.

"The academic life," she points out, "is a three-legged stool of scholarship, service and teaching. It's a great way to work on the stuff that you care about and to do it in a thoughtful and strategic way, then share it with others.

"What's nice about the academic life is you get to be very entrepreneurial. You decide what your research agenda is going to be, and you can teach courses that complement it. The stuff I teach informs my research. My research informs my teaching. My service informs both. It's a nice integrated way of working.

"The variety works great for me," she says. "In some ways, it doesn't feel like work because it's really fun."

At the Academic Health Center, the "three-legged stool" comprises clinical care, research and education, though no one faculty member focuses evenly on all three. A faculty researcher whose salary is totally supported by federal grants, for instance, may lecture only occasionally.

At University Hospital, surgeons who are on faculty may spend the majority of their time taking care of patients, but students and residents are learning as they accompany them. Elsewhere professors may spend the majority of their time in traditional classrooms. "Each person is making an important contribution," says College of Medicine Dean David Stern. "By putting them together, you end up fulfilling the mission of the college."

The classical model for medical faculty was to spend a portion of each day involved in all three areas, but a shift occurred as society became more specialized. Today, clinical faculty are more likely to be performing open-heart surgery than "taking out appendixes and delivering babies as we did," says the dean, referring to his years at Columbia University. "We end up with a more complex kind of physician."

As for researchers, they have a more difficult time obtaining grants now. The National Institutes of Health, for example, basically funds only one out of every 10 applications, no longer leaving room for "people who are just dabbling in research," he says.

And in the classroom, medical education has become almost customized. Simulators let students progress at their own speed, replacing some of yesterday's "cookie cutter" teaching methods, as Stern calls it.

"If someone is a boob with his hands, it might take him longer to learn a procedure than the student next to him. What we really want is the training adjusted so that everyone comes out competent."

To help reach that goal, videos are shot in clinical skills labs to show students how they interact with "standardized patients," actors trained to respond in ways that test students' abilities. Afterward, faculty must review tapes and meet with individual students to discuss both their medical and interpersonal skills. "People have much more rigorous training now," he notes, "but it takes more time to administer that kind of training.

"Plus, you have to continuously update yourself so you are attuned to what is happening in your field. It's a lifelong process. I read journals virtually every night. I still write and review papers. It's a lifestyle."

 

 

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