Shifting to team-based faculty development: a programme designed to facilitate change in medical education

Abstract

The value of traditional faculty development programmes has been questioned regarding its effectiveness in transforming clinical education. Rather than training faculty separately from their colleagues, the faculty development programme described in this paper presented an opportunity for teams of faculty to improve clinical education by developing tools grounded in medical education research. The five participating teams were interviewed in focus groups at the end of the programme and followed up with emails and phone calls three years after the end of the programme. The interview data were analysed according to conventional content analysis. Immediately after completion of the programme, all teams had managed to implement their tools, and three years later, four were still in use. The study demonstrates that critical success factors for faculty development to transform change in practice included a design focused on a stepwise, longitudinal programme; coaching of teams; management and peer engagement, and programme days that created space for reflection, development, and discussion.