Attracting and retaining physicians in less attractive specialties: the role of continuing medical education

Background Less attractive specialties in medicine are struggling to recruit and retain physicians. When properly organized and delivered, continuing medical education (CME) activities that include short courses, coaching in the workplace, and communities of practice might offer a solution to this problem. This position paper discusses how educationalists can create CME activities based on the self-determination theory that increase physicians' intrinsic motivation to work in these specialties. Main content The authors propose a set of guidelines for the design of CME activities that offer physicians meaningful training experiences within the limits of the available resources and support. First, to increase physicians' sense of professional relatedness, educationalists must conduct a learner needs assessment, evaluate CME's long-term outcomes in work-based settings, create social learning networks, and involve stakeholders in every step of the CME design and implementation process. Moreover, providing accessible, practical training formats and giving informative performance feedback that authentically connects to learners' working life situation increases physicians' competence and autonomy, so that they can confidently and independently manage the situations in their practice contexts. For each guideline, application methods and instruments are proposed, making use of relevant literature and connecting to the self-determination theory. Conclusions By reducing feelings of professional isolation and reinforcing feelings of competence and autonomy in physicians, CME activities show promise as a strategy to recruit and retain physicians in less attractive specialties

Enhancing the academic internship learning experience for business education—a critical review and future directions

Academic internships represent an approach for professional development of student’s generic and specific skills and allow students to gain relevant work experience. Despite the growing popularity of internships, limited research has examined the potential benefits of internship supervision at a distance through computer-supported collaborative learning (cscl). This chapter combines the findings of a literature review with insights from a concept-mapping exercise with 22 experts from 15 business schools to identify what constitutes effective collaboration of the three stakeholders: students, company, and business school. Results reveal the inherent goals and expectations of internship supervision differ for companies and business schools. Therefore, the substantial benefits could be obtained through cscl by effective communication and collaboration between the three stakeholders during internships. Future research has to address whether the identified concept map of internships can be successfully implemented in practice

It's about time to involve all stakeholders in co-creating faculty development programmes-Exploring the perceptions of students and teachers

Co-creating faculty development courses or activities through student-teacher partnership is a promising recent educational advancement that also introduces new challenges. This study aimed at exploring the perceptions of students and teachers regarding their experiences as co-creators of a faculty development programmes so that valuable lessons can be learned from their experiences, leveraging towards better programme design in the future. The perceived value of contributions and ways to improve student-teacher partnership in future co-creation activities were also explored. Although some negative and demotivating factors were reported, participants mostly perceived their co-creation experience positively. The inclusion of both students and teachers in co-creating faculty development programmes was perceived essential, because it conveys multiple benefits for stakeholders, the created faculty development programmes, and the design process itself. However, purposeful recruitment of participants and their pre-training are crucial to ensure a successful and productive co-creation activity

Educational Intervention to Improve Citizen's Healthcare Participation Perception in Rural Japanese Communities: A Pilot Study

In this mixed-methods study, we hypothesized that social cognitive theory (SCT)-based educational interventions for healthcare participation can improve the self-efficacy of older rural citizens in participating in their health management without any difficulties. Quasi-experimental study before and after SCT-based educational interventions and semi-structured interviews were conducted. Participants were Japanese elderly (>65 years) from rural communities. Propensity score matching was performed to estimate the effectiveness of educational interventions on participants’ perception (intervention: n = 156; control: n = 121). Interview contents were transcribed verbatim and analyzed based on thematic analysis. The intervention group scored significantly higher than the control group for participation in planning and managing self-care. Interviews revealed three themes: ability to manage health conditions, relationship with medical professionals, and relationship among citizens. Participants reported difficulties in judging symptoms and communicating with medical professionals. Hierarchy and low motivation to participate in healthcare hindered collaboration. The findings suggest that SCT-based educational interventions can positively impact rural citizens’ self-efficacy in healthcare participation