Faculty development for community-based physicians at the University of Massachusetts and SUNY-Buffalo

Community-based faculty development (CBFD) is becoming increasingly important as medical education moves into the ambulatory/office-based setting CBFD provides preceptors with essential knowledge, skills, and attitudes directly related to teaching while providing a sense of identity as teachers to a diverse group of practitioners in a variety of settings. This article reviews the structure and function of successful community-based faculty development, using as examples programs from the University of Massachusetts Medical School and the State University of New York at Buffalo that were supported by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Generalist Physician Initiative. After reviewing the literature on successful implementation of programs dedicated to community-based precepting, the authors investigate the educational concepts, instructional designs, and operational characteristics that are the framework for providing successful faculty development to community-based preceptors. They list rationales and examples of the educational methods used and compare structural components of the programs at both institutions. Last, they explore future directions in the rapidly changing medical education environment that need to be addressed in CBFD in the areas of outcome/program evaluation, comprehensive needs assessment, and regionalization.