March 18, 2020

Dr. Beena Sood named associate dean for Professional Development

Beena Sood, M.D., M.S., FAAP, professor of Pediatrics, has been appointed associate dean for Professional Development in the Wayne State University School of Medicine Office of Faculty Affairs and Professional Development.

Dr. Sood will develop and oversee programming that assists School of Medicine faculty in improving their skills and advancing their careers.

Dean Jack D. Sobel, M.D., announced the appointment March 17. “Her exceptional career in academic medicine with success in clinical care, scholarly activity, teaching, service and advocacy, make Dr. Sood ideally suited to foster professional development of our faculty,” he said.

A member of the faculty since 2001, Dr. Sood has chaired the Women in Medicine and Science group at the School of Medicine since 2015. She has collaborated with other groups on campus to explore gender equity initiatives. She helped lead an analysis of the gender pay gap at WSU and showed that lack of professional advancement opportunities for women was the most powerful determinant in pay disparities. The results were presented at national conferences and to the university’s president and provost. Under her leadership, the WIMS Advisory Group has organized lectureships, workshops, panel discussions and book clubs to engage faculty in diverse topics, including gender pay gap, negotiation skills, climbing the academic ladder, work-life balance, getting to the C Suite and under-representation of women in surgical specialties. The group has expanded its reach by engaging trainees to prepare them for future academic success. She has mentored numerous undergraduate and medical students, residents, fellows and junior faculty, almost half of them women.

Dr Sood recently received the Wayne Women LEAD Woman of Distinction Award for her extensive engagement and contributions to the Women in Medicine and Science group, gender equality, gender pay equity and advocacy for professional development and support for working mothers. The award is presented annually to a Wayne State University female employee who has demonstrated a sustained commitment to the professional development of women and/or issues of diversity, equity and inclusion.

Dr. Sood’s service to the university and the School of Medicine includes serving as deputy Title IX coordinator and membership on several committees. They include the search committee for the new dean/vice president of Health Affairs, the Executive Committee of the School of Medicine Faculty Senate, the WSU Women in Medicine and Science Advisory Committee, the Health Sciences Committee of the President’s Commission on the Status of Women, the Academic Senate, the Faculty Affairs Committee and co-chair of the Gender Equity Working Group at WSU. She is the School of Medicine’s designated representative to the Association of American Medical Colleges’ Group on Women in Medicine and Science.

A professor on the Research Educator track, she has been active in translational research that has been recognized by the award of a Mentored Patient-Oriented Research Career Development Award (NIH K23, 2001) as junior faculty, numerous intramural grants, and an RO1 grant to study the safety and efficacy of aerosolized surfactant in the treatment of respiratory failure in preterm infants (2014-2019). Dr Sood has been recognized for exceptional clinical care through nomination to the Best Doctors (2010-2017, 2019-2020) and Detroit’s Top Docs (2013, 2016, 2019), and outstanding teaching of medical and graduate students, residents and fellows. She is engaged in advocacy locally at the School of Medicine and nationally through the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Committee on Child Health Financing, and as district representative to the AAP Section on Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine. She is the associate editor of NeoReviews, and a member of the editorial board of the American Journal of Perinatology. She was the invited guest editor for the April 2019 volume of Pediatric Clinics of North America on “Recent Advances in Neonatal Care.”

She received her undergraduate degree from the Carmel Convent School, New Delhi, India, in 1981, and her medical degree in 1985 from the Maulana Azad Medical College in New Delhi. She completed a Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine fellowship at Children’s Hospital of Michigan in 2001 and received a master’s degree in Statistical Research Design and Statistical Analysis from the University of Michigan in 2003.

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