ORIGINAL RESEARCH Visiting Professorship in Hospital Medicine: An Innovative Twist for a Growing Specialty Ethan Cumbler, MD 1 *, Carrie Herzke, MD 2 , Roger Smalligan, MD 3 , Jeffrey J. Glasheen, MD 1 , Cheryl O’Malley, MD 4 , J. Rush Pierce Jr. MD 5 1 Department of Medicine, University of Colorado School of Medicine, Aurora, Colorado; 2 Department of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland; 3 Department of Medicine, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, Lubbock, Texas; 4 Department of Medi- cine, University of Arizona College of Medicine–Phoenix, Phoenix, Arizona; 5 Department of Medicine, University of New Mexico School of Medicine, Albuquerque, New Mexico. INTRODUCTION: As an emerging and rapidly growing spe- cialty, academic hospitalists face unique challenges in career advancement. Key mentoring needs, especially developing reputation and relationships outside of their institution are often challenging. METHODS: We describe the structure of a novel Visiting Professorship in Hospital Medicine Program. It utilizes reciprocal exchanges of hospitalist faculty at the rank of late assistant to early associate professor. The program is designed explicitly to facilitate spread of innovation between institutions through a presentation by the visiting professor and exposure to an innovation at the host hospital medicine group. It provides a platform to advance the career success of both early- and midcareer hospitalist fac- ulty through 1-on-1 coaching sessions between the visiting professor and early-career faculty at the host institution and commitment by visiting professors to engage in mentoring after the visit. RESULTS: Five academic hospitalist groups participated. Seven visiting professors met with 29 early-career faculty. Experience following faculty exchange visits demonstrates program effectiveness, as perceived by both early-career faculty and the visiting professors, in advancing the goals of mentorship and career advancement. One-year follow-up suggests that 62% of early-career faculty will engage in subsequent interactions with the visiting professor, and half report spread of innovation between academic hospital medicine groups. CONCLUSIONS: The Visiting Professorship in Hospital Medicine offers a low-cost framework to promote collab- oration between academic hospital medicine groups and facilitate interinstitutional hospitalist mentoring. It is reported to be effective for the goal of professional devel- opment for midcareer hospitalists. Journal of Hospital Medicine 2016;11:714–718. V C 2016 Society of Hospital Medicine Hospital medicine is an emerging specialty comprised predominantly of early-career faculty, often less than 5 years postresidency and predominately at instructor or assistant professor level. 1 Effective mentoring has been identified as a critical component of academic success. 2,3 Published data suggest that most academic hospitalists do not have a mentor, and when they do, the majority of them spend less than 4 hours per year with their mentor. 2 The reasons for this are multifactorial but largely result from the lack of structure, opportunities, and local senior academic hospitalists. 1,4 Early-career faculty have diffi- culty establishing external mentoring relationships, and new models beyond the traditional intrainstitutional dyad are needed. 3,4 The need for mentors and structured mentorship networks may be particularly high in hospi- tal medicine. 5 The Visiting Professorship in Hospital Medicine Pro- gram was designed to promote cross-institutional men- torship, share hospitalist innovations, and facilitate academic collaboration between hospitalist groups. We describe the design and early experience with this pro- gram across 5 academic hospital medicine programs. PROGRAM DESIGN Objectives The program was designed to promote mentoring rela- tionships between early-career hospitalist faculty and a visiting professor from another academic hospital medi- cine group. The program sought to provide immediate career advice during the visits, but also create opportu- nities for long-term mentorship and collaboration between institutions. Goals for each visiting professor- ship included: (1) follow-up contact between early- career faculty and visiting professor in the 6 months fol- lowing the visit, (2) long-term mentoring relationship with at least 1 early-career faculty at the visited institu- tion, and (3) identification of opportunities for interin- stitutional collaboration to disseminate innovations. Selection of Sites and Faculty The first 2 academic medical centers (AMCs) for the vis- iting professorship exchange designed the program (Uni- versity of Colorado and University of New Mexico). In *Address for correspondence and reprint requests: Ethan Cumbler, MD, Associate Professor of Medicine, University of Colorado School of Medicine, 12401 E. 17th Avenue, Mail Stop F782, Aurora, CO 80045; Telephone: 720-848-4289; Fax: 720-848-4293; E-mail: ethan.cumbler@ucdenver.edu Additional Supporting Information may be found in the online version of this article. Received: December 18, 2015; Revised: April 12, 2016; Accepted: April 19, 2016 2016 Society of Hospital Medicine DOI 10.1002/jhm.2625 Published online in Wiley Online Library (Wileyonlinelibrary.com). 714 An Official Publication of the Society of Hospital Medicine Journal of Hospital Medicine Vol 11 | No 10 | October 2016