Academic Relative Value Units: A Proposal for Faculty Development in Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery.

Purpose: The Resource-based Relative Value Scale (RBRVS) designates quantitative values to clinical health care services to identify the relative work and cost of these services. Each clinical service translates to relative value units (RVUs). Clinical RVUs describe clinician work effort to guide employed clinician salaries in academic medical centers. The development of an academic RVU (aRVU) system also seems reasonable to establish and assess the quantity and quality of academic effort of members of our specialty that supports resident and student achievement.

Materials And Methods: The 1998 Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) Mission-based Management (MBM) Program was assessed and adapted in creating an aRVU system. This aRVU system is hypothesized to guide oral and maxillofacial surgery faculty in advancing their missions of didactic and interactive teaching, production and dissemination of scholarly activity, performance of basic science and translational research, and participation in administrative service to academic medical centers.

Results: A logic model was constructed to create and support the aRVU equation as a proposal for faculty development in oral and maxillofacial surgery. Numerous potential barriers exist to the implementation of this proposal, including those related to legacy and generational issues in academic medical centers.

Conclusion: The proposed aRVU system provides quantitative metrics for recognition of faculty development in oral and maxillofacial surgery. This system is based on strategic planning and allocation of effort sessions, and therefore, reflects mutually agreed upon faculty/department chair interests and goals. Annual performance evaluations of oral and maxillofacial surgery faculty can be based on aRVU accumulation.