Building a Culture of Scholarship Within a Family Medicine Department: a Successful Eight-Year Journey of Incremental In
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ORIGINAL RESEARCH
Building a Culture of Scholarship Within a Family Medicine Department: a Successful Eight-Year Journey of Incremental Interventions Following a Historical Perspective of Family Medicine Research Adam M. Franks 1
&
Stephen M. Petrany 1
Accepted: 5 October 2020 # International Association of Medical Science Educators 2020
Abstract Background and Objectives Family medicine (FM), a discipline that eschewed worshiping the ivory tower of research in favor of patient care, has struggled with its role in the world of scholarly activity. FM residencies mirror this conflict despite the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education’s requirements for creating an environment of inquiry and scholarship. Because of this, the faculty within the Department of Family and Community Health (dFCH) at Marshall University changed its culture of scholarship. Methods A faculty-driven needs-based assessment of the department’s strengths and deficiencies for enhancing scholarship was conducted. A three-pronged approach of creating motivation, developing an infrastructure, and consolidating resources was created. This process was periodically re-evaluated and augmented. Departmental scholarly activity, defined as both publications and presentations, was tracked for an eight year period. Results Scholarly output increased by 483% (6 to 29) in year 1 and 10-fold by year 8 (6 to 60) from the pre-culture change baseline. This represents one- and eight-year increases for both publications (4 to 6 and 4 to 18 respectively) and presentations (2 to 23 and 2 to 42 respectively). Scholarly involvement became more widespread among faculty (n = 30) and increased linearly for residents (n = 19) and students (n = 13). Conclusion Through a series of needs-based interventions with consistent reanalysis, the dFCH changed its culture of scholarship. Understanding that other departments have similar competing interests to negotiate, the principles of creating motivation, developing research infrastructure, and consolidating resources could be successfully applied elsewhere. Keywords Scholarship . Research . Departmental culture . Family medicine . Publications
Introduction In 1969, family medicine (FM), formerly family practice, developed from general practice as a more standardized and regulated version of the specialty. At that time, researchers were seen as detached, preferring to build a therapeutic relationship with the disease they fought rather than the patient
* Adam M. Franks [email protected] 1
Department of Family and Community Health, Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine, Marshall University, 1600 Medical Center Drive, Suite 1500, Huntington, WV 25701, USA
[1]. Family physicians were primarily seen as the antithesis, healing artists who put the patient first and could be the answer to the medical shortage in primary care [1, 2]. Still some, including the initial president of the American Academy of General Practice, felt research should be a key mission to ensure the new specialty keep from being considered “unsci
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