Journal of Regional Medical Campuses (May 2020)
Recruiting Faculty From Within: Filling The Growing Need For Family Medicine Faculty
Abstract
The predictions point toward increasing difficulty in recruiting academic faculty in Family Medicine. The 2017 AAMC Final Report, “The Complexities of Physician Supply and Demand: Projections from 2015 to 2030” predicts significant physician shortages by 2025. Changes in practice styles, patient demographics, delivery models, retirement goals, and economic trends make the recruitment of academic faculty more challenging as the physician workforce shrinks. The purpose of this descriptive report is to share how we developed and implemented an academic faculty model that would nurture residents from our program to become members of the Family Medicine faculty, rather than rely on traditional recruiting practices that had proven to be unsuccessful. This process incorporates a faculty /resident needs assessment, development of a customized third-year rotation in academic medicine, completion of faculty development training, a specialized mentorship program and focused orientation. Following this plan, we successfully recruited three new faculty physicians for our residency program.
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