Overview

Want to make time for leadership training and discussion?

This fall, join Tufts CTSI’s inaugural researcher book club to foster your leadership skills.

Paul Beninger, MD, MBA, Assistant Professor of Public Health and Community Medicine and Director of the MD/MBA & MBS/MBA Program at Tufts University School of Medicine, will provide coaching over four book club lunches. The book club will encourage social reading, interactive exercises, and discussion on practical challenges you and your peers face. You will gain practical insights to manage your career and lay early foundations for critical soft skills expected for today’s leaders in team-based science.

Learning Objectives

After completing this book club program, you will have insights into:

  • Discovering your strengths and challenges as observed by yourself and others
  • Examining the triad of soft skills required in working relationships: teamwork and collaboration, negotiation and conflict resolution, and management and leadership.
  • Reframing management and leadership as a broad spectrum of skills to reflect upon and practice daily in the workplace

Dates and Location

Dates: Four 90-minute sessions on Tuesdays in fall 2018

Location: Tufts University’s Boston Health Sciences Campus

  • Session I, October 16, 2018, 12:00-1:30pm: Circle One – Self
  • Session II, October 30, 2018 12:00-1:30pm Circle Two – Other
  • Session III, November 20, 12:00-1:30pm Circle Three – Institutions & Job Knowledge
  • Session IV, December 11, 12:00-1:30pm Circle Four – Management and Leadership

Registration and Requirements

  • Registration Deadline: Register here by Monday, October 8, 2018
    Registration is first come, first served, and priority is given to researchers from Tufts CTSI partner institutions. Once the course is full, additional registrants will be put on a waitlist and invited to the next opportunity. We will confirm your enrollment as soon we finalize the registration list.
  • Target Audience: We are recruiting 12-15 early career clinical, biomedical, or public health researchers, including assistant-level professors, post-graduate scientists such as post-doctoral scholars, research fellows, clinical fellows or senior residents conducting or pursuing research. Priority will be given to researchers from Tufts CTSI partner institutions. All must commit to attending every session and completing assignments.
  • Assignments:
    • Readings:
    • Private Reflection Journal: You will be encouraged to start keeping a private journal and are invited to share your learnings with others in the the class throughout the course. Book chapters are in a workbook format and include guiding questions and practical toolbox skills and exercises that you may choose to use or reflect upon.

Expected Time Commitment

Class attendance is critical to this peer-led discussion format. You will be expected to actively engage in classroom discussion, be open-minded, and respectfully respond to any constructive feedback. If your participation needs to be approved by your supervisor or a person responsible for your time release, you may provide their contact information when you register for the book club.

About Paul Beninger, MD, MBA

Dr. Beninger is Assistant Professor of Public Health & Community Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine, where he is the Director of the MD/MBA and MBS/MBA Programs. He has more than three decades of career experience as a regulator and member of the Senior Executive Service in the US Food and Drug Administration, as a manager and executive in the pharmaceutical industry, including pharmacovigilance, and as a member of the academic community.

Dr. Beninger began his career in drug development in 1987 at the US Food and Drug Administration, first as a reviewer and manager for drugs against HIV/AIDS and opportunistic infections and then as a division director for medical devices. He joined Merck & Company in 1995 and developed experience in regulatory affairs, medical affairs and drug safety in the areas of anti-infective drug and biological products, vaccines, anti-diabetic drug products and oncology drug products, before joining Genzyme as vice-president of pharmacovigilance in 2006; Genzyme was acquired by Sanofi in 2011. Dr. Beninger retired from Genzyme-Sanofi in April 2017.

Dr. Beninger trained in internal medicine and infectious diseases. He received his MD from the University of California, Davis, his BA from Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, California, his MBA from St Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and his graduate certificate in epidemiology from Tufts.

Dr Beninger has published and spoken extensively on regulatory science, drug and vaccine safety, and pharmacovigilance. He is a topics editor (pharmacovigilance and pharmacoepidemiology) for Clinical Therapeutics, and a fellow of the American College of Physicians and the Infectious Disease Society of America.