Team Development | Part Three: Growing Your Team
The Spotlight’s fall series has explored team development in the wake of the Great Resignation. This global phenomenon challenged many institutions to re-think the concept of a team and re-examine ways to retain, retrain, and rebuild their research administration units. In October we talked about building teams. Last month we discussed how to restructure teams through developing strategic staff constructs that benefit both employers and employees. We conclude our series this month with the third step – growing teams through traditional and/or novel methods.
STEP THREE: GROWING YOUR TEAM
Boston Children's Hospital (BCH) has developed an innovative program designed to create awareness and interest in healthcare research administration as a viable career path. This year BCH’s Institutional Centers for Clinical and Translational Research (ICCTR) launched a comprehensive 10-week summer internship program to train future hospital administrators and biostatisticians. The program is founded on three pillars: education, networking and mentorship, and individual projects.
Education
The education pillar is an important aspect of the internship program and the one with the most content. The first part involved a week-long intern-specific orientation where the interns completed required hospital and relevant project-based training, including SAS, RedCap, CITI, ZOOM, and Microsoft Office Suite. The cohort met with mentors and managers to learn about their projects and got to know each other through team bonding and institution-wide events.
BCH’s summer research seminar series began during the internship program’s first week. This pivotal component allowed interns to learn about different parts of the hospital while showing them multiple aspects of the overall institution. The aim was to expose the interns to as many departments of the hospital as possible and ensure they had a well-rounded understanding of hospital operations. Program participants heard from top people in their field and gained real-life, hands-on exposure through various hospital tours. Harvard Medical School faculty discussed statistical analysis and department heads spoke on various administrative topics including strategic access, finance, and professional development. Tours were offered from different departments, including the institution’s world-famous Zebrafish lab, the Medical Intensive Care Unit (ICU), and the Immersive Design System.
Networking/Team Bonding/Mentorship
Networking, team bonding, and mentorship opportunities comprise essential team growing activities. It was vital for the interns to participate in institution-wide events – both formal and informal – so they could gain a better understanding of the hospital and feel connected to the entire institution. BCH young professionals activities offered a friendly way to meet and learn from other staff. Career Bootcamps let participants work on their resumes, complete mock interviews, create elevator pitches, and refine their LinkedIn pages. These sessions conveyed useful and valuable information the interns can use in job searches as well as crucial skills they can practice for the rest of their careers.
Additional team bonding and networking sessions used a more informal environment for interns to learn about life in Boston while getting to know their colleagues. They participated in the famous Duck Boat Tour and went to the Museum of Science to view the Hall of Human Bodies exhibit. They also were able to participate in a charity softball event as a cheer section for the BCH team at Fenway Park, attend the opening of the new garden at BCH, and help plan the clinical research ice cream social. These events presented interns with a different experience from what they obtained through project work and allowed them to get a feel for the culture within the ICCTR and the hospital community.
Individual Projects
It is key that summer interns learn there is a lot of back and forth with a group before a project is completed and that this is a standard part of the research process. The individual projects pillar provides hands-on-experience of what it would be like to work as an administrator or biostatistician.
Administrative interns worked on various projects and completed several operational tasks to ensure that the ICCTR ran smoothly. Summer 2023 interns built external-facing websites for a new web portal program and assisted with grant applications. In addition, these interns created all the marketing materials for the education program. They helped us initiate a new program, "Publication of the Month," where one publication each month is highlighted. They created the Canva templates and the set-up to run the initiative all year. Throughout the summer, each biostatistical intern worked with a senior statistician on a research project which included tasks such as data cleaning, analysis, and results interpretation. This intern group attended meetings with the research teams allowing them to see how the biostatisticians work with their colleagues, i.e., medical doctors and other doctoral-level researchers.
The program culminated with the Summer Internship Academic Poster Fair and end-of-summer presentations. The poster session was held in person and open to the entire BCH community. Presentations were held over Zoom and included mentors and other members within the ICCTR. Interns created an academic poster and completed a presentation (10-15 minutes) about their work. During these sessions, the interns discussed the project(s) objectives, the results, and challenges encountered, as well as lessons learned.
Impact and Sustainability
A strong marketing and recruiting effort with local colleges yielded more than 310 applicants for the ICCTR’s program. The job application link was posted on Handshake, sent to college career offices, and widely shared on LinkedIn. Thirty students were interviewed, with a total of seven hired as inaugural interns. A major program goal is to cultivate a well-rounded experience for interns with the hope that they will continue their careers in healthcare research administration. The ICCTR is thrilled that one of the 2022 interns has just accepted a full-time job at BCH; many others who may not have been thinking about working in this field before their internship experience are now considering careers in healthcare.
Moving forward, the ICCTR plans to take the lessons learned about growing teams through the internship program and work to improve it for summer 2024.
Authored by Michelle Gamliel, MPH, CPH, Senior Program Coordinator
Institutional Centers for Clinical and Translational Research, Boston Children’s Hospital
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