What Keeps Faculty Coming Back? Factors Associated with Continued Pursuit of Faculty Development

Faculty development benefits clinician-educators, yet little is known about what influences clinical faculty to pursue development as educators. To optimize faculty development attendance at a federal medical school with geographically dispersed teaching hospitals, we assessed how demographic and workshop factors impacted attendance by comparing physician faculty who attended faculty development on a single day with those returning any future day.

We conducted a retrospective review of our faculty development website database for attendee, instructor, and workshop factors among physicians attending their first workshop in 2014-2022. We employed a multivariate model to determine a relative return ratio (RRR) and evaluate independent factors for return.

Of 3,213 attendees, 2,204 (68.6%) returned on any future day, with 966/2,204 (43.8%) returning within one week. Surgical faculty were 11% less likely to return than medical faculty (RRR 0.89; 95% CI 0.84 to 0.95), an effect heightened when both attendee and first instructor were surgeons. Workshops delivered by community-based instructors demonstrated decreased return compared to those delivered by university-based instructors (RRR 0.95; 95% CI 0.90 to 0.99). Attendees whose first workshop occurred at large teaching hospitals with an instructor traveling from main campus were more likely to return than in other contexts. Day, month, and time of workshops also correlated with return.

Our study suggests that demographic and workshop factors can influence clinician-educators to continue attending faculty development. We encourage faculty development leaders to evaluate attendance patterns vis-à-viz van Bruggen's 4Cs of competence, context, community, and career to meet the dynamic needs of their faculty.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s40670-025-02422-8.