How do you get to the improvement of teaching? A longitudinal faculty development program for medical educators

Background: Among nonmedical educators, longitudinal faculty development pr ograms most effectively increase teachers' abilities.' Despite most medical settings providing little reinforcement for new instructional skills, reac hing improvement programs infrequently have explicit ongoing activities.(2- 6) We carried our a longitudinal program for medical educators designed to reinforce and firmly establish new teaching skills. Description: We conducted a longitudinal (18 months of biweekly 1-hr meetin gs) faculty development program. Its activities followed an initial structu red seminar series, and the ongoing meetings involved reviewing videotapes of participants' teaching, enacting and debriefing role-plays, and a modifi ed Balint group for medical educators. Evaluation: We assessed the program's process and outcomes using attendance , self-reported teaching behaviors, perceived program usefulness, education al administrative responsibilities, and qualitative analysis of audiotapes and session notes. Conclusions: Participants maintained high attendance during 18 months of me etings. Ratings of usefulness were high, comparable to other faculty develo pment activities with established utility, and qualitative data support uni que benefits of the ongoing meetings. The longitudinal component built on t he initial seminar series; it seemed to enhance collegial support, to allow observation of instructional outcomes to reinforce new instructional skill s, and to foster greater involvement in the institution's teaching activiti es. Teaching improvement programs for physician educators have taken severa l forms, from workshops and expert consultations to month-long minisabbati cals.(2-6) However, mast are single or sequenced interventions, without an explicit long-term component. We present the structure of an 18-month progr am for clinician teachers and report observations supporting the program's utility. We hope that this descriptive study promotes greater attention to and subsequent prospective research of longitudinal faculty development.