This paper offers an overview of faculty development program types, with references to specific programs described in the recent literature. Faculty development programs have been categorized in a number of ways.1,2 This review uses a variation of those typologies and suggests six types of faculty development activities: 1) organizational strategies, 2) fellowships, 3) comprehensive local programs, 4) workshops and seminars, 5) continuing medical education, and 6) individual activities. While these categories provide a conceptual basis for distinguishing among programs, actual programs in use often contain elements of more than one type.

Background and Objectives: More and better research is needed about the effectiveness of faculty development programs. Increasingly, government leaders in Congress and the Administration expect comprehensive outcome and impact evaluation as justification for federal funding. This paper summarizes outcomes reported and methods used in published studies of faculty development programs since 1980.

Background and Objectives: Published faculty program evaluation articles often leave the program description incomplete, making it difficult for new program planners to build on previous work. Using a model based on the work of Stuffelbeam, we examined faculty development literature for the inclusion of important program elements. We found that many important program components, including local needs assessment, leadership and resource support, stakeholder input, implementation barriers, participant attendance, and cost were each discussed in fewer than 30% of published articles. The context, input, process, and product framework is proposed as a guiding model for future program report.s

Faculty development programs have focused on the improvement of clinical teaching for several decades, resulting in a wide variety of programs for clinical teachers. With the current constraints on medical education, faculty developers must reexamine prior work and decide on future directions. This article discusses 1) the rationale for providing faculty development for clinical teachers, 2) the competencies needed by clinical teachers, 3) the available programs to assist faculty to master those competencies, and 4) the evaluation methods that have been used to assess these programs. Given this background, we discuss possible future directions to advance the field.

Background and Objectives: The growth of family medicine as an academic discipline is closely linked to its capacity to generate new knowledge and research. Unfortunately, family medicine faculty report that they are unprepared and lack support to pursue research. This paper reviews what is known about preparing faculty for research roles and suggests steps that the profession and individuals can take to strengthen our research capacity.

Background and Objectives: The complex and unique challenge of academic medicine requires that faculty possess both organizational and leadership skills. This article presents a framework of leadership and organizational skills in family medicine.

Methods: We conducted a focused review of the literature, of presentations at national primary care meetings, and of the curricula of several national faculty development fellowship programs to identify the current emphases, strategies, and outcomes regarding organizational and leadership development activities for academic physicians.

Results: We identified three types of organizational and leadership development strategies and programs, including isolated faculty development workshops at national meetings, longitudinal faculty development fellowship programs, and organizational change efforts within an academic department or residency training program. Indicators that these efforts are successful have primarily been reported in the context of career satisfaction, retention in academic medicine, and attainment of administrative roles or higher academic rank among faculty who have participated.

Conclusions: Organizational and leadership development is occurring in the context of both individual and organizational initiatives. We propose a cycle-of-learning framework that provides one model for development of these essential skills.

Background and Objectives: Successful family medicine faculty are proficient at the skills of the profession, ie, teaching, research, writing, and management. However, possessing these skills is not sufficient for building a successful academic career in family medicine. Successful faculty are also adept at learning, conforming to, and taking advantage of the norms, expectations, and reward structures of the profession. The addition of a conscious, systematic faculty development approach can improve the process and success of faculty learning these skills. Methods for teaching these skills to faculty are reviewed.

Background and Objectives: Academic and community-based family physician faculty must be adept at using technology as an information management tool and a vehicle for written communication. Today's family physicians must apply communication and technology skills in the traditional areas of research and education and in the ever-changing world of managed care, which in turn influences research and education. Written communication and computer competencies are interconnected by the need to collect, manage, and share information. While technology is changing the way family physicians practice, teach, and conduct research, the written word remains one of the most important means for communicating that information to others. This article summarizes the literature on competencies needed, methods used to prepare faculty, evidence of effectiveness of the methods, and recommendations for faculty development activities specific to communication of the written word, emphasizing information technology. We highlight gaps in that literature and offer a revised set of competencies for managing and communicating information in the context of a managed care environment.

Background and Methods: Practical, well-designed, state-of-the-art resources are needed to help medical faculty enhance their skills as educators, researchers, administrators, and academics. Books, audio and video programs, CD-ROM-based programs, and interactive programs created for use on the Internet are needed for independent study, for peer learning, and for activities that are facilitated by faculty developers. The more pressure there is on faculty time, the more desirable becomes the availability of resources that can be used privately, flexibly, and in multiple locations (including home). In this paper, we 1) describe the strategies we used in identifying resources, 2) briefly describe some recently developed resources, 3) make observations about existing resources, and (4) make recommendations for the kinds of resources that need to be created and some criteria to consider when selecting and creating resources. The task of finding existing resources proved to be quite difficult, so as an outgrowth of the research done for this article, we created a Web site (http://www.uchsc.edu/CIS) that provides a continually updated, annotated list of resources for faculty in the health professions and links to other sites with relevant information.

Background and Objectives: The Faculty Research and Educational Development (FRED) Program conducted by the Department of Family Medicine at East Tennessee State University expands research and teaching capabilities of the department and its faculty. The FRED program is developing a faculty cohort with shared socialization to research and educational goals, while providing its members with technical expertise.

Methods: The FRED program provides 18 months of sustained, concentrated training and technical assistance for one faculty member from each of three residency programs. Community faculty also participate in components of FRED to support their teaching and scholarly activities. The FRED program provides faculty with release time to participate in two half-day workshops a month and for protected individual work time. Scholarly activity that results in a presentation or publication is a program requirement. Efficient use of resources is provided through leadership by departmental faculty, along with personnel in the medical school and university. Workshops on research and educational skill building are supplemented by guided activities and consultation within the everyday work setting. Research topics address the needs of faculty as they progress through their projects and include honing of research questions, literature searches, Institutional Review Board/human subjects review, research design, sampling, statistics, and qualitative methods. Educational topics include skill development in precepting, interviewing, small-group teaching, and outpatient clinical teaching, evaluation, and assessment.

Results and Conclusions: We are implementing the third 18-month cycle of this program. Positive outcomes of the program include continued participation by faculty over an extended period as originally planned, inclusion of residents considering fellowships, significant community preceptor participation, creation of a writing group that meets monthly, and closer collaboration between full-time faculty and community preceptors.

Background and Objectives: Faculty development covers a continuum ranging from one-on-one consultation to formal graduate school courses, although there are few published descriptions of degree programs as a faculty development strategy. The University of Minnesota program is unique in that it relies heavily on graduate courses for training of both fellows and existing faculty. The following describes a two-quarter graduate course in education, which is team taught by an MD, MPH (family physician), and a PhD in education.

Methods: The first quarter covers academic ethics, adult learning theory, and principles of curriculum design. Participants design a course/rotation/seminar to be implemented in our medical school or residency programs. The second quarter addresses specific teaching strategies (eg, small-group discussion, clinical teaching) using readings and participant micro-teaching sessions for each strategy. The courses occur over 20 weeks, with 60 hours of instruction and about 120 hours of out-of-class preparation time.

Results and Conclusions: Formal graduate courses have been effective in increasing participant abilities, as evidenced by such things as statistically significant improvement in retrospective and pre/post ratings and evaluations of micro teaching sessions and projects. Also, it takes advantage of the resources of the larger university. Specifically, it provides participants with 1) MD and PhD perspectives, 2) tuition dollars that come back to the school, 3) a means for leveraging fellowship dollars to serve both fellows and faculty, 4) graduate credit for participants pursuing a graduate degree, 5) a model of a rigorous course, 6) a sufficient length of time for participants to complete substantial readings, practice teaching strategies, and meaningful projects, 7) a means for courses and teaching to be improved in our programs, 8) an opportunity for faculty to spend significant time with department and nondepartment participants to discuss teaching issues and to learn about university and medical school politics and resources that apply to educational issues, and 9) a common educational foundation and bonding that facilitates all departmental activities.