Exploring the Networking of Academic Health Science Leaders: How and Why Do They Do It?

Purpose: Networking is essential to leadership effectiveness in the business context. Yet little is known about leadership networking within the academic health science context. If we are going to train academic leaders, we must first understand the relational, network-based activities of their work.

How to Lead the Way Through Complexity, Constraint, and Uncertainty in Academic Health Science Centers.

Academic medicine is in an era of unprecedented and constant change due to fluctuating economies, globalization, emerging technologies, research, and professional and educational mandates. Consequently, academic health science centers (AHSCs) are facing new levels of complexity, constraint, and uncertainty. Currently, AHSC leaders work with competing academic and health service demands and are required to work with and are accountable to a diversity of stakeholders.

What do I do? Developing a competency inventory for postgraduate (residency) program directors.

Background: Few new Residency Program Directors (PD) are formally trained for the demands and responsibilities of the leadership aspect of their role. Currently, there are no comprehensive frameworks that describe specific leadership competencies that can inform PD self-reflection or faculty development.

Methods: The authors developed a Postgraduate Program Director Competency Inventory (PPDCI) in order to frame the performance of PDs for a multisource feedback (MSF) program.

Rethinking CME: an imperative for academic medicine and faculty development.

To help address the clinical care gap, a working group discussed the future of faculty development in academic medicine, explored problems within the large, current enterprise devoted to continuing medical education (CME), and described four domains core to its revitalization and reformation. These domains are (1) preparing and supporting an engaged clinician-learner, (2) improving the quality of knowledge or evidence shared, (3) enhancing the means by which to disseminate and implement that knowledge and evidence, and (4) reforming the patient, health care, and regulatory systems in and for which the process of CME exists. Reshaping these domains requires the consideration of a more seamless, evidence-based, and patient-oriented continuum of medical education.

The mindsets of medical education leaders: how do they conceive of their work?

Purpose: How a leader perceives his or her organization affects that individual's decision making and beliefs about the best way to influence it. The goal of this study was to understand how medical education leaders conceive of their work.

Method: The first author interviewed 16 medical education leaders in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Toronto from June 2005 until February 2006.

Perspective: The missing link in academic career planning and development: pursuit of meaningful and aligned work.

Retention of faculty in academic medicine is a growing challenge. It has been suggested that inattention to the humanistic values of the faculty is contributing to this problem. Professional development should consider faculty members' search for meaning, purpose, and professional fulfillment and should support the development of an ability to reflect on these issues.

Evolving curriculum design: a novel framework for continuous, timely, and relevant curriculum adaptation in faculty development.

The time lag between needs assessment and implementation of faculty development curricula assumes a certain stability of participants' individual and contextual needs which may not reflect the often complex and shifting priorities in health professional schools. In addition to the variability of issues they face, participants are typically better able to recognize and articulate their needs once engaged in a curriculum.This article is a conceptual description of how applying an umbrella strategy to curriculum design illuminated an iterative methodology for continuous adaptation of the 2004-2006 University of Toronto Education Scholars Program in real time to the emergent needs of participants and their context.

Proposed geriatric psychiatry core competencies for subspecialty training.

The authors present and discuss the theoretical and practical development of proposed core competencies for subspecialty training and certification in geriatric psychiatry as required by the Accreditation Council For Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) and the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology (ABPN). Changes were derived from a concern that graduate medical education programs must do a better job of ensuring that residents completing their training are competent to practice medicine and adequately prepared to practice in a rapidly changing healthcare environment. Between July 2006 and June 2011, programs will be expected to focus on data-driven measures, both internal and national, for resident and education-program performance.

Effect of training and other influences on the development of career interest in geriatric psychiatry.

Objective: The authors examined the relationship between the timing and nature of educational exposure to geriatric psychiatry and other potential influences and subsequent development of career interest in geriatric psychiatry.

Methods: A 46-item survey was distributed to residents and fellows who attended one of the two sponsored programs for residents at the three American Association of Geriatric Psychiatry (AAGP) annual meetings held between 2000 and 2002, inclusive.

Results: Ninety-three percent of attendees responded (N=184).

Geriatric psychiatry fellowship programs in the United States: findings from the Association of Directors of Geriatric Academic Programs' longitudinal study of training and practice.

Objective: The authors document the development and growth of geriatric psychiatry fellowship training in the United States (U.S.) through 2002.