Program Profile

VA Boston Healthcare System First Friday Faculty Development Presentation Series

Fed Pract. 2019 November;36(11):514-516

References

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The program soon developed a national audience. In January 2017, this program provided the opportunity for faculty members to earn continuing education (CE) credits for participation. This allowed faculty members a unique opportunity to earn CE for presentations specifically geared toward improving skills as an educator, which is not widely available—particularly at rural and remote VA sites.

Presentations were 1 hour and held on the first Friday of the month at 12 pm Eastern Standard time. Topics for the presentations were identified through formal and informal needs assessments of faculty and through faculty development needs identified in the literature. Presentation topics consistent with the components of the TRAIN framework were selected. The cost to develop the program was largely related to time spent by presentation organizers to arrange speakers, advertise the presentations, develop a protocol for the use of the technology, and apply for accreditation for participants to receive CE credits.

Presenters were educators from a range of health care professions, including physicians, psychologists, nurses, and other professions from VABHS and neighboring Boston-area AMCs. Topics included providing feedback to learners, using active learning strategies, teaching clinical thinking, reducing burnout among educators, managing work-life balance, and developing interprofessional learning curricula. Presentations are archived online.

Results

From January 2017 to June 2018, 869 CE credits were earned by faculty members at VA AMCs nationwide for participating in this faculty development program, including 359 credits for nurses (41.3%), 164 credits for pharmacists (18.9%), 128 credits for physicians (14.7%), 67 credits for social workers (7.7%), and 54 credits for psychologists (6.2%). Other CE credits were earned by dieticians (14), dentists (13), speech pathologists (3), and occupational therapists (2), and other health care professionals (65).

Participants completed satisfaction surveys, responding to 9 questions using a 5-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree) (Table). Data collection practices were reviewed by the VABHS Internal Review Board, which determined that the data did not meet the definition of human subject research and did not require further review.

Participants were asked 2 additional questions to further assess the programming. Seven hundred forty-eight participants responded to the question “How much did you learn as a result of this CE program?” using Likert-scale responses (1 = very little to 5 = great deal): 56.6% responded with a 4, (fair amount), and 21.5% responded with a 5 (great deal). Participants also were asked whether the content of this CE program was useful for their practice or other professional development (1 = not useful to 5 = extremely useful). Seven hundred forty-nine participants responded with a 4 (useful), and 25.4% of participants responded with a 5 (extremely useful).

Discussion

Overall, participants reported that the presentations were effective in teaching content, they acquired new knowledge, and they can apply this knowledge in future teaching. Participants reported satisfaction with the training activities and that the content was presented in a fair and unbiased manner. Further, they reported the training environment was effective, and they would recommend the training to others.