Addressing the Gaps: Factors Influencing Surgical Faculty Engagement in Faculty Development

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Surgical Training
• Faculty Development

Background:

• Faculty development (FD) is crucial in academic medicine, yet surgeon participation lags behind other medical fields.
• Surgeons were observed to be 11% less likely to engage in further education compared to medicine faculty.
• This study investigated factors influencing surgical faculty engagement in FD.

Purpose of the Study:

• To identify barriers and motivators for surgical faculty participation in faculty development.
• To explore the relationship between faculty development engagement and networking opportunities.
• To inform the design of future faculty development programs for surgeons.

Main Methods:

• An exploratory, mixed-methods study utilizing surveys with qualitative thematic analysis and quantitative descriptive/inferential statistics.
• Surgical faculty were categorized into cohorts based on FD participation: control, single-workshop, multiple-workshop, and certificate earners.
• Analysis included 195 surgical faculty across 10 specialties.

Main Results:

• 97.5% of surgical faculty expressed interest in FD, but 27.2% were unaware of available opportunities.
• Key barriers included time constraints, scheduling conflicts, geographic limitations, and administrative burdens.
• Faculty who perceived FD as beneficial for networking and collaboration were significantly more likely to attend multiple sessions (OR=5.03, p=0.004).

Conclusions:

• A majority of surgical faculty desire FD, highlighting the need to address scheduling, location, and topic specificity barriers.
• Increased FD engagement positively impacts the clinician-educator network.
• Future FD initiatives should prioritize surgery-specific content, earlier advertising, and virtual options to enhance participation and training for future surgeons.