Have We Made Progress? Interprofessional Diversity Within Faculty and Course Directors of Continuous Professional...

This study aimed to quantify the impact of joint accreditation on the prevalence of physician and non-physician continuous professional development (CPD) course directors(CDs) and faculty.

CPD CDs and faculty credentials were collected in 2017 (one-year pre-joint accreditation) and 2022 (one-year post-joint accreditation), using electronic and manual data extraction. CPD CDs and faculty were grouped into physician and non-physician cohorts for the quantitative analysis.

A significant increase in the number of non-physician CDs was observed from 2017 (11.3%) to 2022 (22.5%). There were significantly more non-physician faculty at non-physician-focused courses (8.7 ± 8.1 faculty compared to 2.6 ± 4.1 at physician-focused conferences, p = 0.003) with a large effect size, Cohen's d = -1.32 [95% CI -1.8, -0.9]. Finally, while physicians had statistically higher faculty scores for all three measurements (p < 0.001), the effect sizes were small (Cohen's d ranging 0.18-0.20).

Increased diversity in CDs and faculty was noted when comparing pre- and post-joint accreditation suggesting compliance with joint accreditation standards and the growing emphasis on team-based healthcare. Future research is needed to investigate barriers to CPD participation as CDs and faculty for both physician and non-physician healthcare team members. Additional research will continue to help expand diverse professional representation among CDs and faculty within CPD courses.