Professionalism Plan | Duke Department of Population Health Sciences

Created: February 13, 2021

Updated: December 12, 2025

Duke University School of Medicine and the Department of Population Health Sciences (DPHS) are committed to cultivating a respectful, inclusive, and healthy work environment for faculty, staff, students, trainees, volunteers, patients, and visitors. Professionalism is a core value and expectation for each of us and is demonstrated through our words and actions.

Description of Professionalism

Actions that embody professionalism in the academic School of Medicine community have been described in the Duke University Faculty Handbook and include these behaviors:

Adheres to high ethical and moral standards
Conducts academic work with integrity, including adhering to institutional and federal policies on responsible conduct of research and conflict of interest
Demonstrates intellectual honesty
Evinces core humanistic values, including honesty and integrity, caring and compassion, altruism and empathy, collegiality, respect for others, and trustworthiness
Takes personal action to support inclusive excellence (https://oie.duke.edu/about-us/inclusive-excellence-principles-and-guida…)
Is able to subordinate own interests to the interests of others when appropriate
Exercises accountability individually and for colleagues
Demonstrates a lifelong commitment to excellence
Reflects upon actions and decisions
Assures one’s fitness for duty
Exhibits a commitment to scholarship and to advancing their field
Deals appropriately with high levels of complexity and uncertainty

Guiding Professionalism Principles for DPHS

Uphold professionalism in interactions between all members of the department.
Encourage a culture of feedback, and when possible, restorative justice, meaning that to the extent possible, the goal is to preserve our working relationships and collectively grow and improve.
Acknowledge the power differentials among rank within and between faculty, staff, and trainees, and identify feedback mechanisms that ensure honesty, safety, and appropriate response.
Equip faculty and staff with skills to uphold and enact department standards.
Encourage a proactive approach to soliciting feedback from all groups.

Promoting a Culture of Professionalism within DPHS

Provide regular training opportunities to support faculty and staff in the ability to give and receive feedback, communicate crucial concerns, and repair relationships.
Identify and train faculty and/or staff who serve in roles of resource people (see Appendix A for resource people role descriptions and individuals currently in those positions). The faculty resource person is the Vice Chair for Faculty and the staff resource person is appointed by the department Chair (with input from the DPHS Leadership Team).
Establish and communicate clear processes for reporting concerns and incidents. The chart below summarizes the recommended DPHS reporting process.
Faculty and staff resource people are able to assist at any time during the process (see Appendix B for list of individuals currently in leadership roles listed below), including reaching out the Vice Chair of Culture, Engagement and Impact, for issues specific to department climate.

DPHS encourages giving and receiving feedback, communicating crucial concerns, and repairing relationships directly. If those direct conversations do not resolve the issue, the reporting processes below should be utilized.

Find your role in the left-hand column.
Locate the column for the person against whom you are making the report across the top row.
Find the intersection of your row and that column to identify the person you should report to.
If you do not feel comfortable reporting to that person, use the name listed in the far-right column as an alternative.

	Staff	Faculty	Trainee	JF-27¹	If you don’t feel comfortable reporting to those listed above, report to:
Staff	Your Supervisor	Their Staff Supervisor	Director of Graduate Studies	Your Faculty Supervisor	Chief Administrative Officer
Faculty	Your Supervisor	Vice Chair of Faculty	Director of Graduate Studies	Your Faculty Supervisor	Vice Chair of Faculty or Department Chair
Trainee	Director of Graduate Studies	Director of Graduate Studies	Director of Graduate Studies	Director of Graduate Studies	Vice Chair of Education
JF-27¹	Their faculty supervisor	Their faculty supervisor	Director of Graduate Studies	Their faculty supervisor	Vice Chair of Education

Clearly outline levels of reporting and how concerns get escalated based on acuteness of incident² and number of concerns.
- First incident – conflict resolution coaching, sharing resources, building skills
- Second incident – FYI report to one of the following DPHS leaders –
  - Staff – Chief Administrative Officer
  - Faculty – Vice Chair Faculty
  - Students/Trainees – Vice Chair of Education
  - JF-27 (Postdoctoral Fellows, Research Associates, Research Scientists, Research Scholars, Associates in Research, and Visiting Graduate Student Positions) – Chief Administrative Officer
- Third & future incidents go directly to the Chief Administrative Officer and Chair to determine a response.

Identify and document required remediation steps for those on the receiving end of concerns.

Faculty and staff resource people are not permitted to keep confidential case reports but keep internal records of disputes and resolutions.
Documented remediation records are for internal department accountability; staff records are not part of their HR personnel file unless the incident is determined egregious, there are multiple incidents, or their supervisor determines an official HR performance improvement or corrective action plan is needed.

DPHS is committed to the following annually:

Reporting (via the State of the Department) on the effectiveness of these processes; adjust when needed.
Discussing (during faculty annual reviews) how faculty are checking in with staff, what they are learning, how well processes are working, and what they would like to learn more about and improve.
Discussing (during staff annual reviews) how teams are functioning and what areas need to be improved with regard to feedback and culture of communication and professionalism.
Conducting a climate survey to review how faculty and staff view climate and areas of success and improvement.

Appendix A

Staff & Faculty Resource People Roles

Responsibilities & Expectations

DPHS has established faculty and staff resource people roles to 1) assist individuals within the department to address and resolve conflicts, and 2) identify underlying concerns and serve as a resource for suggesting suitable, additional resources for support either within or outside of Duke. The goal of both the staff and faculty resource people is to prevent damaging and divisive conflicts from erupting by providing an effective mechanism to safely voice concerns and seek solutions.

Specific responsibilities and expectations are to -

Provide conflict resolution support as a designated resource for DPHS staff and faculty
Listen, assess situations, and guide individuals toward effective problem resolutions and options.
Consult with department leaders, including the Chair, to establish coordinated efforts to minimize the costs of
workplace conflict
Distribute vetted resources and tools to aid DPHS staff and faculty in fostering a culture of respect, collaboration and problem resolution (e.g. OIE, Learning & Development, Coaching, Staff and Labor Relationship representative for staff, etc).
Perform data collection, records maintenance and report preparation duties

Four ethical principles underlie the work of the resource people.

independence
impartiality
confidentiality*
informality

Kevin Weinfurt will serve in the faculty resource people role, working closely with the appointed staff resource people, Amy Clark, and DPHS leadership to address concerns and resolve conflict in a thoughtful, confidential manner. Although not termed an ombuds, for legal reasons within Duke, the charge of the resource people role is informed by guidance from the Internal Ombudsman Association (IOA), whose board president, Mauricio Ramos, describes the role as, “akin to a conflict coach, helping all parties define the problem, understand each other's concerns and explore options that may resolve or manage the dispute."

DPHS supports the staff resource people role by covering 5% FTE (~2 hours/week) of the appointed staff person. The staff resource people is selected by the Chair (with input from the DPHS leadership team), and serves a term of 12 months. Renewal is possible and contingent after a satisfactory 12-month review by DPHS leadership.

Staff can anonymously report concerns to the Staff Resource Person via this Qualtrics survey.

APPENDIX B

Department Chair:

Lesley Curtis, PhD – lesley.curtis@duke.edu – 919-681-6709

Director of Graduate Studies:

Brad Hammill, PhD – brad.hammill@duke.edu – 919-668-8417

Chief Administrative Officer:

Michael Fern, PhD - michael.fern@duke.edu – 408-205-8766 (cell)

Vice Chair of Faculty:

Kevin Weinfurt, PhD – kevin.weinfurt@duke.edu – 919-681-6709

Vice Chair of Education:

Asheley Skinner, PhD – asheley.skinner@duke.edu – 919-668-6360

Vice Chair of Culture, Engagement, and Impact:

Lauren Brinkley-Rubinstein, PhD – lauren.br@duke.edu – 919-668-1753

Staff Resource Person:

Amy Clark – amy.clark@duke.edu – 919-668-6287

If you need help identifying the correct supervisor or appropriate contact to reach out to, feel free to consult the staff resource person.

^[1] Postdoctoral Fellows, Research Associates, Research Scientists, Research Scholars, Associates in Research, and Visiting Graduate Student Positions

^[2] Anything defined as egregious (a violation that rises above the level of internal mediation alone due to legal or compliance implications) goes directly to the Chief Administrative Officer and Department Chair to determine a response.

*Those serving in the role of resource people are permitted to offer confidentiality regarding not sharing personal information, or details outside of the conversation thus making it a safe space to air concerns and have a resource people serve as a sounding board without concern that information will be shared. This applies only to conversations that do not include concerns about issues such as sexual misconduct or any form of harassment or professional misconduct prohibited by the university. If such concerns are raised any faculty member or staff in a supervisory position is compelled to submit a report to OIE. Only official University Ombuds are permitted to hold confidentiality in such instances. The University Ombuds is the only university official, other than EAS, who is permitted to hear information regarding breaches of professional conduct and who is not compelled to report such information, to offer university employees options of reporting or other action without being compelled to do so.