Emergency medicine clerkship directors: current workforce

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Emergency Medicine
• Faculty Development

Background:

• The emergency medicine clerkship director is crucial for medical student education.
• Previous demographic and academic profiles of these directors require updating.

Purpose of the Study:

• To update the demographic and academic profile of emergency medicine clerkship directors.
• To assess job satisfaction and protected time allocation for these directors.

Main Methods:

• A comprehensive questionnaire was developed and administered.
• Survey targeted all emergency medicine clerkship directors at U.S. allopathic medical schools.
• Descriptive statistics were used for data analysis.

Main Results:

• 80.4% of directors responded (n=107).
• Directors were predominantly male (68.2%), Caucasian, and at the instructor/assistant professor level (71.3%), with a mean age of 39.7 years.
• Mean protected time for administration was 7.3 hours/week, but 32.7% had none; 49.5% were involved in educational research.
• Job satisfaction was high (79.8%).

Conclusions:

• Emergency medicine clerkship directors are often junior faculty.
• They engage in diverse educational activities beyond their primary clerkship role.
• High job satisfaction exists despite challenges with protected administrative time.