Resident Remediation in Family Medicine Residency Programs: A CERA Survey of Program Directors

Background and Objectives: Identifying underperforming residents and helping them become fully competent physicians is an important faculty responsibility. The process to identify and remediate these learners varies greatly between programs. The objective of this study was to evaluate the remediation landscape in family medicine residency programs by investigating resident remediation characteristics, tools to improve the process, and remediation challenges. Methods: This study analyzed responses from the Council of Academic Family Medicine Educational Research Alliance (CERA) national survey of family medicine program directors in 2017. Survey questions included topics on faculty remediation training, remediation prevalence, tools for remediation, and barriers to remediation. Results: Two hundred sixty-seven of 503 program directors completed our survey (53% response rate). Most residency programs (245/264, 93%) had at least one resident undergoing remediation in the last 3 years. A majority (242/265, 91%) of residents undergoing remediation were successful within 12 months. The three most important tools to improve remediation were an accessible remediation toolkit (50%), formal remediation recommendations from national family medicine organizations (20%), and on-site faculty development and training (19%). The top-two challenges to the remediation process were a lack of documented evaluations to trigger remediation and a lack of faculty knowledge and skills with effective remediation strategies. Conclusions: Residents needing remediation are common, but most were successfully remediated within 12 months. Program directors wanted access to a standardized toolkit to help guide the remediation process.

Beyond Research Productivity: Matching Productivity Measures to Institutional Mission

Aim/Purpose: The aim of this paper is to develop a unified methodology inclusive of the three primary areas of faculty responsibility (teaching, research, and service) to calculate departmental productivity that fills the gap in methodological bench-marking tools for overall faculty productivity. Background: A disproportionate number of departmental and faculty productivity indices in higher education rely solely on research. Productivity in other areas of faculty workload areas, like teaching and institutional and community service, are either measured separately or ignored all together – even when those activities are institutionally mandated. This does a disservice to those who work in those institutions and skews incentives. Methodology: This paper utilizes a unified methodology inclusive of the three primary areas of faculty responsibility (teaching, research, and service) to calculate depart-mental productivity in five disparate departments (English, Biology, Mathematics, Sociology, and Computer Science) common to two universities with differing missions (teaching and service). Findings: The results reveal the bias inherent in relying solely on research as a proxy for overall productivity in institutions that have differing missions. Recommendations for Practitioners: Utilizing better metrics informs higher education administrators, promotes better decision-making, and allows incentives to re-align with desired outcomes. Recommendation for Researchers: This paper recommends combing all aspects of faculty workload into a single benchmark index to better measure departmental productivity. Future Research: Further research into improving this simple index is warranted and would include how to account for quality and other facets of productivity.

Faculty Perceptions and Participation in Distance Education

Motivating faculty members to teach at a distance has been a challenge for most colleges and universities. What will be the impact of teaching using technology on faculty responsibility? Is teaching students through any or all distance education methods really nothing more than adapting traditional classroom approaches? What are the attitudes and barriers to using technologies often associated with distance education? In this chapter the authors present data obtained from an extensive survey of faculty opinions on teaching at a distance, as well as several case studies describing incentives and training made available for distance education. To enhance participation in distance education, faculty must have the competence, attitude that distance education is important and valuable, and infrastructure available to facilitate the additional time and effort to convert courses. Faculty training programs cannot be “one-shot” and should include personnel in close proximity to faculty, preferable on their own equipment. Release time is an important incentive to encourage participation.

Academic Advising Ain't What It Used To Be: Strangers in the University

“Academic Advising Ain't What It Used To Be “ was the keynote address at the 1994 NACADA convention in Las Vegas, Nevada. Byrd discusses the way undergraduate education is changing in terms of student diversity, financing and time required for graduation and considers how these changes affect academic advisors. In response to calls from college administrators to adapt to the new face of undergraduate education, Byrd suggests equipping faculty for the task of advising by providing specific training and by making advising an official and evaluated aspect of faculty responsibility.