Background

Engagement of academic faculty in research remains low. While barriers to research have been explored, there are no data on how national organizations can help overcome these barriers. Our study explored faculty satisfaction and motivational drivers for engagement with research opportunities offered by the Council on Medical Student Education in Pediatrics (COMSEP), an organization of pediatric medical educators, and characterize strategies perceived by faculty to promote the use of these opportunities.

Methods

In 2021, 5 survey questions were administered to faculty members of COMSEP to explore satisfaction with COMSEP's research offerings, the perceived value of educational research, and the facilitators, barriers and potential opportunities for COMSEP to promote research. Clark's Commitment and Necessary Effort model on motivation served as the theoretical framework for our study, which explores motivation, self-efficacy and contextual factors influencing an individual's pursuit of goals. Chi-square analysis and Wilcoxon Signed Ranks Test were used to compare categorical and scaled variables among groups who did and did not avail of COMSEP's research offerings.

Results

90 (25%) of 360 recipients responded. 61% expressed satisfaction with COMSEP's research offerings. 68% indicated research was an expectation of their academic appointment, that education was their primary research focus (74%) and that they did not have other research opportunities that met their needs (58%). Of respondents, 75.7% of females had submitted a proposal compared to 60% of non-responders who were females. The comparison by gender was not statistically significant. Exploration by academic rank revealed that 35% of instructor/assistant professors had submitted a proposal compared to 65% of associate professors/professors (p =.05). Barriers leading to non-submission to any of the offerings included having too much other work, lack of enjoyment in writing and inability to find mentors. Respondents endorsed the importance of several strategies to promote engagement in research-skill building opportunities, personalized consultations and increased funding.

Conclusions

Faculty educators value the importance of educational research and recognize that research opportunities offered by COMSEP address an unmet need, but express ambivalence in the enjoyment of writing (reflecting their mood), and endorse structural barriers, that are amenable to change, affecting their personal agency.

Many challenges could occur that result in the need to handle an increase in the number of medical student clinical placements, such as curricular transformations or viral pandemics, such as COVID 19. Here, we describe four different institutions' approaches to addressing the impact of curricular transformation on clerkships using an implementation science lens. Specifically, we explore four different approaches to managing the 'bulge' as classes overlap in clerkships Curriculum leaders at four medical schools report on managing the bulge of core clinical placements resulting from reducing the duration of the foundational sciences curriculum and calendar shifts for the respective clerkship curriculum. These changes, which occurred between 2014 and 2018, led to more students being enrolled in core clinical rotations at the same time than occurred previously. Schools provided respective metrics used to evaluate the effectiveness of their bulge management technique. These data typically included number of students affected in each phase of their curricular transformation, performance on standardized examinations, and student and faculty feedback. Not all data were available from all schools, as some schools are still working through their 'bulge' or are affected by COVID-19. There is much to be learned about managing curricular transformations. Working on such endeavors in a learning collaborative such as the AMA Accelerating Change in Medical Education Initiative provided support and insights about how to survive, thrive and identifying lessons learned during curricular transformation.