Clinician-educator tracks for residents: three pilot programs.

OBJECTIVE: Over the past 30 years, clinician-educators have become a prominent component of medical school faculties, yet few of these individuals received formal training for this role and their professional development lags behind other faculty. This article reviews three residency tracks designed to build skills in teaching, curriculum development and assessment, education research, and career development to meet this need. METHODS: The residency clinician educator tracks at University of Michigan, Baylor College of Medicine, and University of California Davis are described in detail, with particular attention to their common elements, unique features, resource needs, and graduate outcomes. RESULTS: Common elements in the tracks are faculty mentorship, formal didactics, teaching opportunities, and an expectation of scholarly productivity. Essential resources include motivated faculty, departmental support, and a modest budget. Favorable outcomes include a high percentage of graduates in clinical faculty positions, teaching programs created by the residents, positive effects on recruitment, and enhancement of faculty identity as clinician educators. CONCLUSION: Clinician-educator tracks in residency present a viable means to address the training needs of clinical track faculty. The programs described in this article provide a model to assist other departments in developing similar programs.

The doctoring curriculum at the University of California, Davis School Of Medicine: leadership and participant roles for psychiatry faculty.

OBJECTIVE: The authors describe in detail the 3-year model of the Doctoring curriculum plus an elective fourth-year Doctoring course at University of California, Davis School of Medicine (UCDSOM) and University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) School of Medicine and the critical role for psychiatry faculty leadership and participation. METHODS: The authors present a review of curricular materials and course operations for the different Doctoring courses for first-, second-, third-, and fourth-year curriculum. The authors describe the role of psychiatry faculty in both leadership and in group facilitation. RESULTS: The Doctoring curriculum offers case-based, small-group learning that relies heavily on standardized patients to teach core content around doctor-patient communication, ethics, behavioral medicine, and counseling approaches. There are frequent psychosocial issues woven in to these encounters. Psychiatry faculty members and other mental health professionals are well-prepared by virtue of their training to lead small group discussions and facilitate the supportive elements of the small groups in medical education. CONCLUSION: The Doctoring curriculum is both a biopsychosocial educational endeavor and a high-visibility leadership opportunity for the Department of Psychiatry. Other medical schools and departments of psychiatry may wish to pursue similar roles in their didactic programs.