Background: We are a large academic Hospital Medicine Group comprised of over 100 hospitalists at two tertiary care hospitals in an urban-suburban setting. Our group serves as the inpatient attendings for a large internal medicine residency program, leads robust co-management services (trauma surgery, ENT, neurology, neurosurgery, orthopedic surgery, psychiatry, & urology), and cares for a large population of non-resident covered patients. In all, our hospitalist group cares for more than 400 patients each day. Maintaining an active and meaningful faculty development program for a group of this size with such varied activities and experiences can pose a challenge.
Purpose: We sought to develop a robust faculty development program to focus on the demands of our varied clinical and non-clinical activities, as well as highlighting local expertise in our group. This was part of a strategic plan for the continued growth of our academic division.
Description: Our faculty development program is led by a senior hospitalist with protected time to organize and evaluate these activities. Didactics exist in several forms: 1. Internal presentations from hospitalists in our group; 2. External speakers from outside the group; 3. Lecture Series. Over the past few years, we have completed multiple faculty development projects, generally based on the needs of the group. I.e., our group noticed an increase in patients taking novel chemotherapeutic agents. In response, one of our hospitalists (with an interest in oncology) put together a brief talk on new agents and common side effects. As a push came from GME to boost Evidence Based Medicine teaching, we organized a lecture series (given by residency EBM faculty) in evaluating literature and teaching Evidence Based Medicine. We continue refining our EBM skills with a monthly internally-run Hospitalist Journal Club. As we developed a cohorted geriatrics unit, we developed a Geriatric Medicine lecture series given by local Geriatric and Palliative Care experts. Post-intervention survey after that lecture series showed improved comfort levels of our hospitalists in dementia and delirium care (from 36.5% to 73.1%), polypharmacy (from 44.4% to 84.6%), malnutrition (from 25.0% to 69.2%) and fall prevention (from 41.7% to 83.3%).Currently, we are in the midst of a perioperative lecture series. This was implemented in response to the expansion of our groups’ surgical co-management programs. This lecture series is given by external subspecialists (i.e. cardiologists, endocrinologists, and pulmonologists), as well as internal members of our group who specialize in surgical co-management.
Conclusions: We have designed a demand driven faculty development program, which has positively contributed to the growth of our hospitalist group. The program consistently has high attendance, is well-received, and has led to improved knowledge and comfort levels in a variety of topics. Additionally the program highlights the local expertise of members of our hospitalist group. Key to the success of this program is the leadership of a senior hospitalist to both plan and evaluate the program.