institute for professional development
Shaping the Next Generation of Educational Leaders in Medicine and Dentistry for Practice in the 21st Century
Accelerating advances in health information and technology and the increasing complexity of healthcare delivery, call for renovation in approaches to medical and dental education. Faculty development in medical/dental education can be instrumental in training physicians and dentists to meet the demands of contemporary practice. However, in a period of diminished resources, individual schools are limited in their ability to create effective and comprehensive faculty development programs with the resources available to single institutions.
The Associated Medical Schools of New York (AMSNY), a consortium of New York State’s fifteen medical schools and the New York State Academic Dental Centers (NYSADC), a consortium of New York State’s five dental schools, are working cooperatively to create a multi-disciplinary resource for professional learning. The Institute will provide a regional, cost-effective and educationally sound response to the changing needs of faculty educators at member schools by capitalizing on the broad base of expertise and maximization of resources that exist at its constituent schools. The Institute’s inter-institutional and multi-disciplinary approach will provide an enhancement of curricula and overall program quality as well as a shared vision among participating schools.
From the AMSNY survey of Institute Faculty Planners, November 2009
Institute Mission
The AMSNY Institute for Professional Development aims to promote excellence and scholarship in the work of educators and leaders, advance the careers of participating faculty, and provide a statewide cadre of faculty who can share ideas andinformation across the individual schools.
The Institute’s programs are designed to be equally relevant across the:
- Continuum of medical and dental education including undergraduate, graduate and continuing professional education.
- Leadership structure of the academic medical center, including but not limited to: clerkship/residency program director, division chief, vice chair, assistant or associate dean.
Brief Description
The AMSNY Institute for Professional Development is a collaborative effort of over 65 faculty planners across the fifteen medical and five dental schools in New York State. Key elements include a comprehensive curriculum that leads to a certificate of advanced study, in-person sessions at a central location, intersession work via email and web, a comprehensive mentoring program, completion of a scholarly project of interest to the faculty fellow and the school, and sign-off by the Dean/department chair. The Institute contains two tracks: Medical/Dental Education and Scholarship and Leadership Development.
- Medical/Dental Education and Scholarship: Learning is integral to the mission of medical and dental schools. The education track will advance the educational mission of the schools through a collaborative effort that supports the faculty educators at each of the schools. Through its programs, it will function as a “teaching commons”1, where educators can learn new skills, meet to talk across institutional and departmental boundaries, discuss scholarly approaches to teaching, acquire ideas for value-added programs or strategies to bring back to their institution, and develop a deeper understanding of educational scholarship.
- Leadership Development: The leadership development track will advance the knowledge and skills of those faculty members from the state’s medical and dental schools who are recognized as emerging leaders in their institutions. The initiative will focus on preparing them to inspire and provide leadership for the fundamental changes to New York State’s medical and dental education that will impact the physicians and dentists who will practice in the mid-21st century.
Faculty from each of the medical and dental schools involved in planning the Institute were surveyed in 2009 on likely benefits of the Institute for: participating faculty, member institutions, fellows and academic medical centers. Some of the benefits identified by the survey were (survey results are available below):
- Participating faculty: Graduates will have developed new skills in education and the management of administrative issues and have gained a statewide cadre of colleagues. Members of the curriculum planning groups already have experienced this collaboration with new colleagues. The Institute instructors, mentors and fellows will gain recognition as outstanding educators and leaders, and engage in scholarly activities that improve their professional portfolios. Participation in the Institute is expected to benefit their careers.
- AMSNY/NYSADC Member Institutions: The twenty schools benefit from inter-institutional communication among the Institute’s faculty and fellows, the ability to share best practice models across institutions and disciplines of medicine and dentistry, the development of collaborative programs across institutional boundaries, the ability to leverage school resources through more effective programs, and the engagement of stakeholders
- Academic medical centers: The medical and dental schools and academic medical centers will have created a cadre of new leaders in education and administration. They will gain access to a range of expertise and resources through the collective experience of the Institute fellows. The schools will be able to share piloted projects that have demonstrated effectiveness. This collaboration increases the prestige of the New York State schools nationally and helps the schools retain and attract faculty.
Our academic medical centers are facing increasing demands for accountability from accrediting bodies, the Liaison Committee for Medical Education (LCME)2, the American Osteopathic Association’s Commission on College Accreditation (AOA COCA)3, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME)4 , the Joint Commission5 and the Commission on Dental Accreditation (CODA)6. The educators and the members of the leadership structure take primary responsibility for accreditation. Through the Institute, these faculty members will gain new skills in education and management to help in meeting the accreditation requirements.
Why the Institute is Unique
AMSNY coordinates efforts across the 20 New York State medical and dental schools. By coalescing the strengths of individual schools, it is in a unique position to provide faculty with the expertise necessary to train future physicians and dentists for practice in the continually evolving healthcare system of the 21st century. The outcomes of this state-wide initiative can also inform future programs of this scale and serve as a national model for successful collaboration.
For more information, contact:
Sharon K. Krackov, Ed.D., Director, Medical and Dental Education
Associated Medical Schools of New York
1270 Avenue of the Americas, Suite 606
New York, NY 10020
Tel: 212-218-4610
Fax: 212-218-5644
References
- Huber MT, Hutchings P, The Advancement of Learning: Building the Teaching Commons, The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, San Francisco: Jossey Bass, 2005
- LCME Accreditation Standards 2005; Functions and Structure of a Medical School, Part 2
- American Osteopathic Association Accreditation of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicinehttp://www.osteopathic.org/index.cfm?PageID=acc_predoc
- ACGME Outcomes Project http://www.acgme.org/Outcome/
- Joint Commission http://www.jointcommission.org/AccreditationPrograms/Hospitals/
- Commission on Dental Accreditation (CODA) http://www.ada.org/prof/ed/accred/commission/index.asp
