Establishing and sustaining a regional medical educator professional home

Purpose The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) seeks to foster members’ growth, leadership skills and networking opportunities through its professional development groups. Its Group on Education Affairs (GEA) focuses efforts on advancing medical education and developing educators across the medical education continuum nationally and regionally. However, there has been no investigation into how these regional volunteer member groups establish and sustain a culture which supports members’ professional development. This project seeks to address this gap. Method The culture of a region can be understood through the lens of members using a key informant approach. In the central GEA (CGEA), medical education laureates are senior members and leaders recognized for significant contributions to shape the region with tenures dating back to CGEA’s shift to a member group. Semi-structured, individual phone interviews were conducted and recorded with 19 of 20 laureates between February-March 2015. Shared values, themes, and critical events in the CGEA’s history emerged and were confirmed during the 2015 CGEA Regional meeting. Results Establishing the CGEA’s culture as a professional development home began with clear, shared values focused on collegiality and inclusiveness. These values are sustained through citizenship expectations and leadership succession development, which result in outcomes of innovation and scholarship. Conclusions The CGEA as a professional home within the medical education community is inclusive of members with diverse backgrounds and nurtures their professional identity as medical educators. Sustained through accountabilities to members’ and leaders’ professional growth, the CGEA’s attributes and culture align with features of successful organizations