Transformative professional development of physicians as educators: assessment of a model.
OBJECTIVE
Medical education reform has been the clarion call of U.S. medical educators and policymakers for two decades. To foster change and seed reform, Harvard Medical School created a professional development program for physicians and scientists actively engaged in educating future physicians that sought to transform both participants and their schools. This study focused on identifying the long-term effects of a professional development program on physician educators.


METHODS
A follow-up survey of the 1995-97 cohorts of the Harvard Macy Program for Physician Educators was conducted by sending the 99 program participants a questionnaire two years after their participation. Main outcome measures studied were individual changes as reflected in participants' self-reported shifts in teaching behaviors, academic productivity, career advancement, and sense of commitment.


RESULTS
A total of 63 participants completed the questionnaire, for a response rate of 63.6%. Two years following participation in the program, a majority (88.8%) of respondents reported that participation had significantly affected their professional development, including long-term changes in teaching behaviors (77.8%), engagement in new educational activities from committee work (86%) to grant funding (52.4%), and renewed vitality/identification of themselves as educators.


CONCLUSIONS
Long-term follow-up of participants enrolled in an intensive program for physician educators suggests that professional development programs that create an immersion experience designed in a high-challenge, high-support environment, emphasizing experiential and participatory activities can change behaviors in significant ways, and that these changes endure over time.
Armstrong
Elizabeth G
EG
Harvard-Macy Institute, Harvard Medical School, 1135 Tremont Street, Suite 900, Boston, MA 02120, USA. elizabeth_armstrong@hms.harvard.edu
Doyle
Jennifer
J
Bennett
Nancy L
NL
D004501:Education, Medical / Q000458:organization & administration; D005180:Faculty, Medical / Q000458:organization & administration*; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D007588:Job Satisfaction; D008297:Male; D008404:Massachusetts; D017146:Models, Organizational; D010820:Physicians / Q000523:psychology; D011361:Professional Competence; D013192:Staff Development / Q000458:organization & administration*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013663:Teaching / Q000379:methods