In response to feedback from the first faculty retreat this summer, the Department of Surgery implemented the UT Southwestern Surgery Connect program to improve communication.

This past summer, the Department of Surgery hosted its first annual faculty retreat.All faculty members were given protected time to attend the retreat, a day of professional development presentations and activities.

During a breakout session, keynote speaker Mark DeVolder identified the four pillars of engagement that are critical to the success of an organization: appreciation, competence, influence, and clarity. He then asked the attendees to single out the pillar they thought could use improvement in the department. The majority of the faculty’s feedback pointed to a desire to improve clarity, or communication, in the Department of Surgery.

In response, the chair of the department, Herbert Zeh, M.D., implemented UT Southwestern Surgery Connect, a series of brief video updates that would be emailed out to the faculty on a regular basis. These updates would be kept to three minutes or less, and would cover an important announcement, an upcoming event, a programmatic overview, or a recap of an important meeting. The videos are meant to supplement rather than replace regular face-to-face meetings such as faculty meetings and the Surgery Faculty Professional Development Series.

Past video updates covered topics such as the ongoing research seminar series, a preview of the coming surgeon data dashboard, a shift toward behavior-based interviews for the current residency interviewing season, and key takeaways from the monthly faculty meetings.

Past videos are housed on the Department of Surgery’s internal SharePoint site so that faculty members may review that content at their leisure.