A senior man and woman standing together and smiling

Virtual Caregiving Community of Faculty Members

Are you a faculty member responsible for the care of an adult in your life; e.g., your spouse/partner, a parent, or close relative?

Join our monthly virtual caregiving community co-sponsored by the Office of Faculty Affairs and the Office of MyWellbeing. Dr. Kim Skarupski began this work at Johns Hopkins University and is inviting UTMB faculty caregivers to join the community. Read below for more information and/or email kskarupski@utmb.edu for questions or to be added to the monthly Outlook zoom invitations. We meet the second Tuesday of each month, 5:30 to 6:30 p.m., via Zoom.

Background: We are a passionate group of faculty members who have been/are currently providing care for our older family members and spouses/partners. We have been meeting monthly since June 2023 with the primary goal of building a legacy community around caregiving. We’ve spent the past year and a half sharing our caregiving experiences; discussing work-caregiving challenges; and providing resources, tips, and lessons learned.

Our communal work has resulted in a curated list of resources, primarily in three caregiving buckets: home health care providers, adult day services, and care coordination (our desire is to grow this list to be more nationally and internationally inclusive. We appreciate that many of our universities support childcare and faculty well-being; and as such, we seek to heighten awareness around the increasing prevalence of faculty members providing care for older adults.

To learn more, see the linked articles below.

Family Caregiving Experiences of Medical School Faculty: High prevalence, high strain, and low resource awareness

Late-Career Faculty: Individual and Institutional Perspectives

Late-Career Expectations: A Survey of Full-Time Faculty Members Who Are 55 or Older at 14 U.S. Medical Schools

Late-Career Faculty: A Survey of Faculty Affairs and Faculty Development Leaders of U.S. Medical Schools

Prevalence of caregiving and high caregiving strain among late-career medical school faculty members: workforce, policy, and faculty development implications