Faculty development for educational leadership and scholarship

The Medical Education Scholars Program (MESP) at the University of Michigan Medical School is designed to develop leaders in medical education. The program's goals are to enable faculty to provide curriculum direction, improved teaching, educational research, and development, and institutional leadership at all levels of medical education. This one-year program uses a variety of educational methods and provides a broad curriculum in educational theory, assessment and evaluation, research design and methods, teaching-skills development, and educational leadership. Faculty are admitted on a competitive basis and one half-day per week of release time is funded as part of the program. Salient outcomes of the program (promotions, educational research and development, curriculum leadership, and educational scholarship) were measured in a pre- and post-program design in which each scholar acted as his or her own control. There were major increases in promotions and educational awards, new educational responsibilities, and new educational programs. A particularly important outcome was the emergence of educational scholarship in the professional portfolios of the program scholars in the form of peer-reviewed presentations and publications and educational grant funding. A cost-outcome analysis indicates that these multi-year outcomes were obtained from a one-time investment of approximately $21,000 per graduating scholar. This evaluation indicates that intensive faculty development programs can have measurable impacts on the careers of the participants and the institutional environment.