Robbie Paulsen, MD

I am thrilled to be joining the Washington University faculty group as Assistant Vice Chair of Mentorship and Faculty Development in September 2023. While I am new to the department, I am not new to EM and am happy to share my journey with all of its pearls and pitfalls with you.

I grew up in the Chicago suburbs as the child of two elementary school teachers knowing that I wanted to be an educator someday. I discovered my love of medicine during undergrad as a member of the Washington University Emergency Support Team. I embraced my liberal arts education majoring in Anthropology and Biology and found my way to Emory in Atlanta, where I completed medical school in 2010. During residency in Cincinnati I pursued experiences in medical education during my spare time, building curricula for our EM Interest Group, creating a longitudinal EM enrichment program for the College of Medicine, and serving as Chief Resident in 2013-2014. I began my faculty career as our Fourth-Year Clerkship Director in 2014 and became very involved in undergraduate medical education at the institution level. While I loved what I did and appeared to be successful at it on the outside, I was very unwell on the inside and honestly struggled with my transition from resident to faculty. Our department had no structured mentorship or faculty development to help guide people like me, so I created a program inspired by my own journey and launched our department’s Junior Faculty Development Group in 2015. I developed quarterly workshops targeting universal developmental needs for early career faculty and served as our advocate within our department’s leadership council until I aged out. The Junior Faculty Development Group served as a source of community and comfort for me, and I did my best to help make life a little better for those who came after me. After six years as Clerkship Director, I needed a new challenge and there was an opportunity for me to pivot back into the residency. I served as Assistant Program Director from 2020-2023 as our program’s assessment specialist, overseeing our evaluation system, in-training exam preparation, and academic support processes.
I was very happy with my career and my life in Cincinnati until one day when my former colleague, Dr. Adeoye, blindsided me with the opportunity of a lifetime to come back to St. Louis after 16 years and join your departmental leadership. My head knew it was the right decision immediately, though I admit I still feel like my heart is catching up sometimes. I will split my time between Barnes and Missouri-Baptist and will serve as Assistant Vice Chair of Mentorship and Faculty Development. Competence and professional identity are life-long pursuits, and my goal is to foster individual and group systems of mentorship and to create content so that all of us can learn and grow together. As a mentor, I promise to share my experience (the good, the bad, and the ugly) and perspective but will not tell you what to do. My hours are flexible, though I am always happy to meet over a drink or a good meal.