Outcomes of a National Faculty Development Program in Teaching Skills: Prospective Follow-up of 110 Internal Medicine Faculty Development Teams

BACKGROUND: Awareness of the need for ambulatory care teaching skills training for clinician-educators is increasing. A recent Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA)-funded national initiative trained 110 teams from U.S. teaching hospitals to implement local faculty development (FD) in teaching skills. OBJECTIVE: To assess the rate of successful implementation of local FD initiatives by these teams. METHODS: A prospective observational study followed the 110 teams for up to 24 months. Self-reported implementation, our outcome, was defined as the time from the training conference until the team reported that implementation of their FD project was completely accomplished. Factors associated with success were assessed using Kaplan-Meier analysis. RESULTS: The median follow-up was 18 months. Fifty-nine of the teams (54%) implemented their local FD project and subsequently trained over 1,400 faculty, of whom over 500 were community based. Teams that implemented their FD projects were more likely than those that did not to have the following attributes: met more frequently (P=.001), had less turnover (P=.01), had protected time (P=.01), rated their likelihood of success high (P=.03), had some project or institutional funding for FD (P=.03), and came from institutions with more than 75 department of medicine faculty (P=.03). The cost to the HRSA wwas $22,033 per successful team and$533 per faculty member trained. CONCLUSIONS: This national initiative was able to disseminate teaching skills training to large numbers of faculty at modest cost. Smaller teaching hospitals may have limited success without additional support or targeted funding

Teaching the Teachers: National Survey of Faculty Development in Departments of Medicine of U.S. Teaching Hospitals

OBJECTIVE: To determine the prevalence, topics, methods, and intensity of ongoing faculty development (FD) in teaching skills. DESIGN: Mailed survey. PARTICIPANTS: Two hundred and seventy-seven of the 386 (72%) U.S. teaching hospitals with internal medicine residency programs. MEASUREMENTS: Prevalence and characteristics of ongoing FD. RESULTS: One hundred and eight teaching hospitals (39%) reported ongoing FD. Hospitals with a primary medical school affiliation (university hospitals) were more likely to have ongoing FD than nonuniversity hospitals. For nonuniversity hospitals, funding from the Health Resources Services Administration and >50 house staff were associated with ongoing FD. For university hospitals, >100 department of medicine faculty was associated. Ongoing programs included a mean of 10.4 topics (standard deviation, 5.4). Most offered half-day workshops (80%), but 22% offered ≥1-month programs. Evaluations were predominantly limited to postcourse evaluations forms. Only 14% of the hospitals with ongoing FD (5% of all hospitals) had “advanced” programs, defined as offering ≥10 topics, lasting >2 days, and using ≥3 experiential teaching methods. These were significantly more likely to be university hospitals and to offer salary support and/or protected time to their FD instructors. Generalists and hospital-based faculty were more likely to receive training than subspecialist and community-based faulty. Factors facilitating participation in FD activities were supervisor attitudes, FD expertise, and institutional culture. CONCLUSIONS: A minority of U.S. teaching hospitals offer ongoing faculty development in teaching skills. Continued progress will likely require increased institutional commitment, improved evaluations, and adequate resources, particularly FD instructors and funding