Geriatrics Recruitment Resources

at the Indiana University School of Medicine

Program Overview

The Faculty Enrichment and Educational Development (FEED) program was established in 2003 to address faculty development in education and teaching skills. The FEED series of quarterly workshops aims to help faculty understand the language of the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) core competencies and to demystify some of the concepts embedded within this new paradigm. In addition, it provides a forum for like-minded faculty to network socially and professionally, which is often difficult to do at the current pace of clinical work on an academic campus.

The FEED series is based on a similar program that was developed and implemented in the school’s pediatrics department.

Program Operations

The FEED series is a quarterly two-hour evening workshop series for faculty in the school of medicine. The series “feeds” people dinner, as well as a new skill to enhance their teaching and/or academic life. Each workshop includes a buffet dinner and a mini-lecture, followed by a small-group activity. Lecturers are primarily from the internal medicine department, though faculty from other departments are encouraged to participate.

With a very large and decentralized campus, it is important to provide an opportunity for people to gather and see each other. Academic medicine has created many competing demands on people’s time and it was felt that faculty would benefit from having an interactive and fun networking opportunity, to keep them engaged and excited about the teaching mission.

Since 2003, 15 workshops have been held, focusing on topics such as:

• professionalism
• keys to mentoring
• giving effective feedback
• the power of death and dying for teaching humanism in medicine
• the physician as patient
• difficult conversations.

Approximately 80-90% of the speakers have been internal medicine faculty members, but many efforts have been made to include members from all departments, and to make the offerings interdepartmental and collaborative so that everyone can get something from them.

The two-hour workshop is generally scheduled with 25 minutes for registration and dinner, 25 minutes for a mini-lecture and introduction to the topic, and 50 minutes for a small-group activity in which participants share experiences and work on an assigned task. The last 20 minutes is reserved for a large group wrap-up and evaluations.

There was originally a FEED Design Group that met in the fall of every year to identify key needs for the faculty and individuals who might have something to contribute on a specific topic. The coordinator then set the dates for the workshops, reserved the rooms, and invited the speakers. In recent years, the newly-created Office of Faculty Affairs and Professional Development, a dean’s level office, has contributed to designing the FEED series. Some of the topics are chosen based on the needs assessment portion of the evaluation form for each workshop.

A Save the Date announcement is generally distributed in November. The first workshop of the next calendar year is held in February, followed by workshops in April, August, and October. Past participants receive the Save the Date announcement and are encouraged to bring a friend to the workshops. There is also an announcement about FEED in SCOPE, the School of Medicine’s online weekly newsletter.

Faculty can receive CME credit for participating in these events, and presenters and facilitators in certain departments can get Educational Relative Value (ERVU) credit, a system that the department uses to explicitly recognize faculty teaching that involves medical students, residents, and fellows.

Staffing Requirements

A faculty member coordinates invitations, room reservations, RSVPs, nametags, evaluations, and CME application and maintenance (5-10% FTE). Workshop leaders are faculty who contribute their time.

Program Costs and Funding Sources

Program costs are minimal ($500-800), based on attendance numbers. This includes photocopying materials, nametags, facility fees, and dinner. Faculty time is donated.

This is now a school-wide activity, so the Office of Faculty Affairs and Professional Development provides support for it.

Process and Outcomes Data

Each workshop is attended by 35-70 faculty members and has received consistently high ratings from the participants. Programs are adjusted based on feedback year to year.

The workshops help foster cross-divisional cooperation and help create cohesion in the department.

Implementation Lessons

• It is important to assess the talent within the faculty to identify partners to help deliver the workshops.
• Titles matter—work to create a title that asks a question or intrigues the faculty member. This may require some marketing skills.
• It helps to have very engaging, entertaining speakers to start, especially those who have many contacts that will draw a crowd.
• The time during dinner should be separate from the workshop in order to foster collaboration and collegiality among the faculty.
• The small-group activities are critical—get the faculty to share their own experiences and stories, which are the best lessons.
• Be creative with the small-group time—i.e., use Wicked Questions, World Cafés, hands-on demonstrations, and role plays.

Available Materials

Tools/Resources

• Program invitations, featuring topics and speakers
• Overview and example of Wicked Questions

Website

• The World Café website: http://www.theworldcafe.com/

For More Information

Lia Logio, MD
Assistant Dean for Faculty Affairs and Professional Development
Indiana University School of Medicine
WD OPW M200
1001 W. 10th Street
Indianapolis, IN 46202
(317) 630-6906
llogio@iupui.edu

Download the program as a PDF file