Thank you for joining me in this brief discussion about faculty development. My name is Melanie Celestio, and I am a general cardiologist at UT Southwestern Medical Center. Today, I will be going over several aspects of faculty development in the context of how it applies to a cardiovascular fellowship program. I will go over what faculty development is, why it's important. I'll give you some examples of areas of faculty development as well as touch upon opportunities where and how it might be applicable to faculty with different levels of involvement in medical education. Let's get started. First of all, what is faculty development exactly? Faculty development, as you can see defined here, is instruction or program designed to prepare faculty members for their various roles. The goal of improving instructor's knowledge and skills in the areas of teaching, research, and administration. For the purpose of the discussion today, I will be discussing faculty development for medical education and teaching. But why is faculty development important? Particularly, why is it important to a cardiovascular training program? First of all, faculty development helps individuals acquire and or improve specific skills pertinent to our learners. Skills such as giving feedback and mentoring. In an era of increasing demands and multiple roles and responsibilities, development is critical in highlighting the importance of education. Additionally, at any institution, faculty development can promote the pursuit of excellence in teaching, as well as promote standards for educators within your division. Ensuring excellent educators at one's program also supports a solid foundation to answer the call to create a culture of increasing accountability and patient safety. Finally, if for nothing else, faculty development is necessary for every ACGME accredited program, as mandated by the common program requirements and its reporting on the annual performance evaluation form. Depending on when you're reviewing this module, please realize that this is always subject to change, depending on updates to the ACGME common program requirements and the annual program evaluation forms. Now, when it comes to faculty development, there's a wide range of possibilities. It can be anything from simply coaching a colleague, say when running into her or him in the hallway, all the way to attending conferences held at one's home institution or even nationally or internationally. And of course, it includes the whole range of potential possibilities within. Examples listed here include feedback on teaching evaluations, video modules like this one, as well as teaching workshops. It may be easiest when considering how one might delve into faculty development, whether it be for personal use or to provide development to individuals at your institution to focus on specific areas as it pertains to medical education. When thinking about faculty development with respect to different areas of medical education, there are several potential opportunities to improve oneself. No matter what role a faculty member plays in your division, the following opportunities for improvement apply to anyone who has contact with learners. There are skills such as giving good presentations. The second bullet, teaching skills, is an incredibly broad term, but as an example, the skill of teaching using bedside rounds could be an area to improve upon. Also, other examples are how to teach a challenging learner or perhaps how to teach a learner who does not take feedback well. Evaluating learners is always a good skill for educators to have. This will help program leadership differentiate the various strengths and weaknesses of each fellow, as well as help avoid the tendency for most faculty to grade all within the same range for every learner. For example, on a scale of one to 10, evaluators tend to lean towards grading all learners at approximately a seven. Faculty development in this area can increase your splay. Another important skill for all educators is how to give feedback. Giving feedback in a timely and constructive fashion is a skill that can be obtained with proper teaching and practice. And finally, development can also take the form of teaching leadership skills, as well as developing faculty by providing career advice. Successful divisions and organizations understand that leadership skills are important at every institution. By providing development in these two areas, a cardiovascular fellowship program can enhance the effectiveness of the core teaching faculty, as well as groom faculty to become potential core teaching faculty, or even program leaders for the future. Another way to think about faculty development, other than the different areas, is what faculty happens to be your target audience. This diagram outlines the various levels of faculty with respect to medical education. Please note that this is not a diagram of the splay of faculty in a division, such that the topmost tier does not necessarily represent your chief or your chair of the department. Some faculty actually in higher level administrative positions in this diagram may reside in one of the other tiers, and even the general teaching faculty tier. So at the largest, but bottom most tier is a general or entry level faculty. Faculty development geared towards this group can be vastly different than the development aimed towards your topmost tier. For these individuals, one might focus on basic teaching skills, rounding skills, and things like general assessment and feedback. The middle two tiers are the key teaching faculty and the education leadership. For these individuals, developing educational scholarly activity or mentoring skills might be more applicable. And finally, at the topmost tier, there are the teacher scholars. These individuals often have great wisdom with respect to where education has been and where it's going at the institution. Primarily, these individuals are stakeholders and can be a great resource for providing development to the tiers below. There are different opportune times for providing faculty development. Here are just a few times to consider. Entering faculty into an institution or division poses a fantastic opportunity for development. A new faculty member can be an eager learner and therefore a good recipient. An institution can consider having an education module or reading material available or required for such individuals. As interview season approaches, there's a huge spotlight on the fellowship program. This is a good time to educate faculty about the program and make opportunities for development more clearly apparent. Teaching evaluations are always a great source of data for faculty development. This is a great jumpstart for any individual who might not fully understand the need for improvement in teaching. Use this data to introduce opportunities for such individuals. And the last three are typical scenarios to every fellowship. For a problematic rotation, one might be able to identify areas that lie within the role of the faculty and therefore provide a notice for development. Just like the faculty evals, the data generated by poor scores of rotation can spurn this opportunity. In addition, a challenging learner or a challenging environment can also be a notice for faculty development, specifically for feedback, for example, or for teaching innovative ways to improve the learning experience in a particular environment. For example, a rotation that has a setting of fellows and faculty working with conflicting personalities in an outpatient clinic may be an opportunity to develop the faculty's leadership and leadership and negotiation skills, which can subsequently also be passed on to the faculty's learner. With regards to the timing and frequency of faculty development, not every program is different, and this will also vary depending on each program's needs. A good approach after listening to this discussion is to make a list of all the potential areas that may need faculty development attention for your program. Grade these areas on a scale of one to 10, one being the lowest need and 10 being the highest need. Choose one or two areas with the highest score and focus on them in the coming months. When grading, keep in mind what is necessary via the common program requirements as posed by the ACGME. After coming up with a plan for faculty development, before instituting the plan, consider how you might measure success. This can be as simple as following through on the plan to use when you're just starting out, all the way to something more concrete like an observable metric. Either way, don't let perfect be the enemy of good. Get started and remember that anything is better than nothing. Whatever you start with can be version 1.0 and can be improved upon with the next go-round. For more information and resources, consider the following. The top two are websites from acc.org, the ACC Fellowship Program Tools and Resources website and the ACC Faculty Development Center website. You can also reference these two articles from academic medicine that highlight the data in the history of faculty development. And finally, don't forget to consider local educator development programs through your own medical center or medical school. This is Melanie Celestia from UT Southwestern concluding the module on faculty development. Thank you for listening and I wish you the best at your own institution and with all your faculty development projects.

faculty development

teaching skills

evaluating learners

medical education

teaching evaluations