Description
Tenure-track Associate or Full Professor, Division of General Internal Medicine
This opportunity is ideal for an academic general internal medicine physician who wants to champion statewide efforts to improve the health of people in vulnerable communities across Tennessee (TN). The faculty member will receive the support and mentorship needed to enable our TN Population Health Consortium to continue to get and execute on large research grants from foundations and federal agencies, including NIH, AHRQ, HRSA, and PCORI.
Job Summary:
We are seeking an experienced clinician-investigator with a passion for patient-centered outcomes, quality improvement (QI), and population health research to join a growing and dynamic team of faculty in the Division of General Internal Medicine, Center for Health System Improvement, and Tennessee Population Health Consortium, with opportunity to have a secondary appointment in the Department of Preventive Medicine. We are seeking a faculty member to focus primarily on conducting pragmatic clinical and population health research. The Center serves as the research core of the Tennessee Population Health Consortium, a statewide primary care extension service dedicated to strengthening primary and preventive care and improving the health of Tennesseans. The candidate will work in collaboration with major health systems and community health centers across Tennessee to improve care for vulnerable populations.
The clinician-investigator will care for patients, conduct pragmatic clinical and health services research, and train and supervise residents, fellows, and health policy and outcomes research MS and PhD students. Clinical responsibilities will be based at Regional One Health (ROH) through UT Regional One Physicians and will include oversight of medical students and residents in the ROH Outpatient Center Internal Medicine Clinic. The candidate will particularly help support QI activities at ROH and its efforts to extend essential primary and preventive care into the community. Candidates should have a strong interest in one or more of these areas: patient-centered outcomes research; population health; QI; comparative effectiveness; health care delivery; health information technology; disparities; and improving care for patients with obesity, diabetes, or other chronic diseases.
About UTHSC:
The University of Tennessee Health Science Center is the flagship, statewide, public, academic health institution in Tennessee. Founded in 1911, the mission of the University of Tennessee Health Science Center is to improve the health and well-being of Tennesseans and the global community by fostering integrated, collaborative, and inclusive education, research, scientific discovery, clinical care, and public service. Employing more than 4,600 people on its faculty, staff, and not-for-profit corporation faculty practice groups, and with more than 3,200 students across the state, UTHSC contributes $4 billion to the economy of TN.
Part of the University of Tennessee System, the Health Science Center is headquartered in Memphis and includes all six of UT’s doctoral-degree-granting health science colleges- Medicine, Dentistry, Pharmacy, Nursing, Graduate Health Sciences, and Health Professions. UTHSC spans the state with its four major, regional clinical health science locations in Memphis, Knoxville, Chattanooga, and Nashville, as well as more than 100 clinical education sites across Tennessee. UTHSC is the largest educator of health care professionals in the state and operates the state’s largest residency and fellowship advanced training programs.
Located in West Tennessee on the banks of the Mississippi River, Memphis is the second-largest city in the state and among the largest and most culturally diverse cities in the Southeast. The greater Memphis area benefits from being the largest majority African American major metropolitan area in the U.S. with more than 1.3 million residents and low cost of living. It is home to vibrant restaurant and music scenes, a revitalized Downtown, the Midtown Arts District, many scenic neighborhoods, an active medical district, and a beautiful and convenient airport. Memphis attractions include Elvis Presley’s Graceland, the Memphis Grizzlies, historic Beale Street, the National Civil Rights Museum, the Stax Museum of American Soul Music, the second-largest urban county park in the United States, over 273 miles of bike trails, the Memphis in May International Festival, and the International Blues Challenge.
About CHSI:
The UTHSC Center for Health System Improvement improves health and health care in the Mid-South region by supporting interdisciplinary health systems research, evaluating innovative regional health and health care QI efforts, championing patient-centered outcomes research, and promoting sustainable community-driven health system change. The CHSI currently has four core faculty based in the Division of General Internal Medicine, Department of Medicine and/or Department of Preventive Medicine and is rapidly expanding.
About Tennessee Population Health Consortium:
The TN Population Health Consortium is a statewide partnership including the University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC) and its Memphis, Nashville, Chattanooga, and Knoxville campuses; the University of Tennessee, Knoxville; and partnering academic institutions, health systems, health plans, QI organizations, providers, and patients. The Consortium aims to strengthen primary and preventive care to measurably improve population health in TN. The Consortium’s signature initiative—the TN Heart Health Network funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC)—is developing sustainable, statewide QI support capacity for primary care. This Network of primary care practices is working together to promote and disseminate evidence-based approaches to address social determinants underlying adverse cardiovascular outcomes in collaboration with community health centers serving Tennessee census tracts with highest prevalence of hypertension. Through the Neighborhood Health Hub Program based in Memphis/Shelby County, TN, the Consortium expands access to essential primary and preventive care in medically underserved neighborhoods by providing convenient, place-based, neighborhood-level care delivered by health coaches representing the community served. Through the TN Population Health Data Network (TN-POPnet), which includes over 18 health systems and represents over 3.5 million Tennesseans, the Consortium tracks QI initiatives for obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease to measurably improve the health of Tennesseans.
About Regional One Health:
Regional One Health (ROH) has a 180-year history, serving as the main teaching hospital for the UTHSC and training over half of the doctors in TN. It provides accessible, efficient, and high-quality healthcare to individuals from a five-state region within 150 miles of Memphis, serving as the only Level 1 trauma center and primary safety net hospital in the region. ROH is anchored by five highly respected centers of excellence (e.g., trauma, burn, wound care, neonatal/perinatal and high-risk obstetrics), provides comprehensive services and experience treating the most challenging health issues, and emphasizes holistic, patient-centered, high-quality care for all those we serve.
Requirements
Position Qualifications:
Successful candidates will hold an M.D. with an additional M.P.H., Ph.D., or equivalent degree; demonstrated scientific accomplishment; board certification/board eligibility in internal medicine; excellent oral and written communication skills; and ability to acquire sustained, external, investigator-initiated research funding. Preference will be given to applicants who have conducted scholarly work in health services or pragmatic clinical research with practical implications for clinical practice and population health. We are looking for faculty members who can lead multidisciplinary research teams, develop and test interventions to improve health systems serving vulnerable populations, and who have contributed to successful primary care and/or population health research programs.
To learn more, contact Jim Bailey, MD, MPH (jeb@uthsc.edu) or Misa Carter (mcarte81@uthsc.edu) at 901-448-TPHC (901-448-8742)
