Mid-career faculty development in academic medicine: How does it impact faculty and institutional vitality?

Purpose: Faculty vitality is integral to the advancement of higher education. Strengthening vitality is particularly important for mid-career faculty, who represent the largest and most dissatisfied segment. The demands of academic medicine appear to be another factor that may put faculty at risk of attrition. To address these issues, we initiated a ten-month mid-career faculty development program.

Methods: A mixed-methods quasi-experimental design was used to evaluate the program's impact on faculty and institutional vitality. Pre/post surveys compared participants with a matched reference group. Quantitative data were augmented by interviews and focus groups with multiple stakeholders.

Results: At the program's conclusion, participants showed statistically significant gains in knowledge, skills, attitudes, and connectivity when compared to the referents.

Conclusion: Given that mid-career faculty development in academic medicine has not been extensively studied, our evaluation provides a useful perspective to guide future initiatives aimed at enhancing the vitality and leadership capacity of mid-career faculty.