Community Faculty
Providing guidance to residents in the clinical setting, supervising medical student rotations, teaching, and performing important scientific research.
The Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine at UNLV is committed to delivering high-quality innovative education, research, and superb clinical care to meet the health care needs of the growing and diverse population of Nevada. To accomplish this program, we are building a strong partnership with the community, including the community faculty program.
Community faculty are individuals who volunteer their time to help the medical school in aspects of education, research, community engagement or care of others. There are several ways candidates can help the school, including research collaboration, student mentorship, and community and committee support.
Would you like to be among those individuals who directly participate in shaping the education of future physicians of Nevada? If so, please discuss your wish to contribute with a department of your choice and complete the community faculty application.
Application Process Requirements
- Doctoral-level training or field-specific equivalent.
- Please discuss this opportunity with the department chair prior to applying.
- If recommended by the chair, you will be provided with the link to complete the portal application.
- Approval of Community Faculty appointment is based on the following:
- Meeting established criteria as stipulated by the Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine at UNLV and specific department criteria.
- Appointment is contingent upon successfully passing a background check, which may include, but is not limited to, National Practitioner Data Bank, criminal history, credit history, sex, and violent offender registry, verification of employment and education history, as well as licensure, and exclusion and debarment list checks.
Expectations
A minimum of 25 hours of documented service per year is required to maintain Community Faculty status.
Benefits
- Database articles (such as PubMed, DynaMed Plus, Up to Date, etc.) from on and off campus locations
- Remote access to Libraries’ online resources through an ACE account (if issued by UNLV Office of Information Technology)
- Use of library computers and printing
- Check out materials
- Library On-Campus locations include:
- 625 Shadow Lane, School of Medicine Library (3rd Floor)
- 4505 S Maryland Parkway, Lied Library
- Community Faculty can receive a RebelCard for a fee of $20 to access multiple discounts and offers.
- Please contact the RebelCard office, and inform them of your appointment as Community Faculty from the Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine at UNLV so that the RebelCard staff will be able to look up your information.
Community (Adjunct) Faculty are eligible for grant-in-aid (per Title 4, Chapter 3, Section 12, Page 13 of the Board of Regents Handbook). This is only applicable to the Community Faculty and does not include spouse and financially dependent child below 24 years of age.
Involvement Opportunities
The Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine at UNLV interviews up to 320 applicants per year for 60 available seats in each educational cohort. Students being interviewed are seeking to enroll and earn a doctorate degree in medicine.
Community faculty can receive five hours of service credit for each interview day plus 1 hour for new interviewer orientation.
| Activity | Length | Time of Year |
|---|---|---|
| New Interviewer Orientation | 1 hour | On your interview day prior to the applicant sessions |
| Applicant Interviews | 45 minutes each 2 each on the interview day |
September - February |
| Applicant Evaluations | 20 minutes per applicant (est.) Submitted at the conclusion of the interviews – real time evaluation entry on provided laptop. |
September - February |
Community Faculty include primary care providers and specialists working in hospitals, clinics, and private practices throughout Southern Nevada. Community-based faculty members serve as preceptors for medical students in their offices and teach in the Foundations of Clinical Practice course, the Longitudinal Integrative Clerkship, and offer advanced electives for career exploration in the UME’s Phase III curriculum. Community faculty members also serve on important departmental and school-wide committees that contribute to the continuous quality improvement of educational and clinical programming for the UME curriculum.
The Longitudinal Integrative Clerkship (LIC) and the primary care clerkship experiences are unique components of the undergraduate medical education curriculum at the Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine at UNLV. The longitudinal Foundations of Clinical Practice course provides first- and second-students with primary care clerkships that bridge the gap between didactic learning and clinical application by hands-on clinical experiences with community-based primary care providers. LIC preceptors and specialists working in hospitals, clinics, and private practices throughout the Las Vegas valley and Southern Nevada play a critical role in the Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine at UNLV’s undergraduate medical curriculum. Community Faculty serve as preceptors for students in their clinical offices/practices and teach physical diagnosis and advanced examination skills, along with interdisciplinary communication skills, which are cornerstones of the medical students’ clinical educational experiences.
As a Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine at UNLV Community Faculty member, you can volunteer your time to mentor medical students in a scholarly project. As a faculty advisor or mentor, you will be an integral part of the medical student research experience by facilitating their opportunity for scientific inquiry, research, and scholarship. The research experience is distributed over two periods during their second year. Research 1 (MED 807) encompasses 6 weeks during the summer after year 1. Research 2 (MED 827) includes up to 4 weeks of additional time during their second year. Mentors are expected to guide the medical students in outlining their research strategy for projects before the first research experience to set clear expectations of the proposed scholarly work. Community faculty mentors will also guide students in writing a research proposal for their project.
The primary objectives of the student's scholarly projects are to:
- Apply the principles of the scientific method for the strategic planning of research projects. Including basic methods in the design, analysis, and interpretation of research studies.
- Demonstrate both written and verbal communication skills for describing research goals, objectives, and methodology.
- Enhance student's study of medicine and foster a lifelong commitment to investigation and cross-disciplinary thinking.
- Identify fundamental theories, concepts, and models from a range of scientific disciplines that are used in research and practice.
- Identify appropriate collaborations for the planning, implementation, and evaluation of proposed research projects.
- Complete required Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative (CITI) modules to foster an understanding of the scientific and ethical considerations of performing human subjects research.
- Identify the guidelines necessary for the responsible conduct of research studies.
If you want to become a research mentor, please contact Dr. Dale Netski, Director of Medical Student Research, at dale.netski@unlv.edu, for more information.
Frequently Asked Questions
Contact the department (of your field/specialty) to discuss your application, and obtain approval from the Department Committee/Chair to proceed with the application. Upon approval, the department coordinator will provide you with the portal application link.
Overall it takes about a month to complete the process. The following steps will take approximately two weeks:
- Completed community faculty portal applications and uploads will be sent to the designated department on the application.
- Each department committee will review applications, CVs, licenses and will assign a title.
The department will send its results to the community faculty manager. Recommendations will be forwarded to the faculty appointment promotion and tenure (FAPT) committee for vetting and confirmation of titles assigned. FAPT committee meetings are held monthly.
Upon approval, the department will send the appointee the terms of appointment (TOA) and documents for signature. The appointment begins after the necessary signed documents are received and signed by the dean. A copy of the signed TOA and certificate will be emailed to the appointee.
Yes, after your Workday profile is created. As part of the onboarding process, you will be asked to provide your Social Security Number to be able to create a Workday profile. Once this is created, you will receive an email notification from nshe@myworkday.com and will be asked to confirm the information to complete your profile. Thereafter, you will be provided with a UNLV email account.
The ACE account is created automatically with your Workday profile. The account credentials will be delivered to the personal e-mail address provided during the application process. The UNLV ACE account allows you to log in to various UNLV services and applications with just one username and one password.
For ACE login issues, contact the School of Medicine IT at help@medicine.unlv.edu.
Library privileges are allowed with an ACE Account. Please log in with your ACE account on the UNLV Health Sciences Library website to access its resources.
For any further questions or concerns regarding the library resources, please contact them at hslref@unlv.edu or 702-895-0144.
You may purchase a Rebel Card for $20 from the Rebel Card office located at the UNLV Student Union. The Rebel Card is used for campus ID, faculty/staff discounts, and to check out materials from the library.
The community faculty manager will inform you of CME credit opportunities when they become available.
Yes. Please ensure that you have a prefix (Clinical/Adjunct) to your title (e.g. Clinical Assistant Professor). The exact phrasing should be:
“Clinical Assistant Professor
Department of Medicine, Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine at UNLV”
Your title is stated on your Terms of Appointment and certificate.
Community Faculty Highlights
Stay updated on our Community Faculty’s contribution and commitment to educating our future physicians and giving back to the medical field and Las Vegas community.
If you would like to recommend a Community Faculty to be featured or recognized for their service, please contact ocf@medicine.unlv.edu.