A qualitative interview study on the positive well-being of medical school faculty in their teaching role: job demands, job resources and role interaction

Abstract

BackgroundAttention for the well-being of medical school faculty is not only important for the prevention of attrition and burnout, but may also boost performance in their tasks in medical education. Positive well-being can be conceptualized as work engagement and this is associated with increased performance. In this study we explore how demands and resources from different tasks affect work engagement specifically for education.MethodsBetween June and September 2013, we conducted a multisite semi-structured interview study with a diverse group of medical school faculty and used an open-coding strategy within the Work Engagement Model on the transcribed interviews.ResultsWe interviewed 16 faculty members whose teaching experience ranged from 7 to 38 years and whose professional tasks ranged from being solely an educator to being a physician, researcher, educator and administrator simultaneously. All participants were clear on the perceived demands and resources, although similar aspects of the work environment could be perceived oppositely between participants. Overarching themes were perceptions related to the organization or department, often described as a general and long-term effect and perceptions directly related to a task, often described as a direct and short-term effect on well-being. Furthermore, the demands and resources as resultant of fulfilling multiple tasks were described clearly by participants.ConclusionsThe ambiguous nature of the work environment in terms of demands and resources requires an individualized approach to supporting work engagement. Furthermore, faculty members perceive many resources from fulfilling multiple tasks in relation to their tasks in education. Faculty developers and administrators alike could use these findings to apply the concept of work engagement to their daily support of faculty in medical education.

Die Rolle von persönlichen Ressourcen bei der Stressbewältigung

“…Individuelle Ressourcen sollten bspw. durch Supervision situationsbedingt als auch individuell betrachtet [38]. Leistungsfeedback ist ein Faktor, der sich positiv auf das Engagement in der Ausbildung auswirken kann [37].…”

Meistriškumo dirbti strategijų vaidmuo išsekimo ir darbo išteklių sąsajoms: pedagogų imties tyrimas

“…Tad šiame kontekste labai svarbu suprasti, kaip pozityvūs veiksniaitiek organizaciniai, tiek individualūs -gali padėti užkirsti jam kelią. Ypač daug dėme-sio pastaruoju metu skiriama asmeniniams darbuotojo ištekliams ir jų didinimui, nes juos asmuo ir organizacija gali vystyti (Berg et al, 2015;Lyons, 2008), o tai gali būti išsekimo darbe prevencijos būdas.…”

The struggle to support the transition to medical educator

“…They do expect doctors to do their best and to seek help when there is uncertainty Despite many of our GP trainees growing up in an era of digital technology and access to the Internet to answer any question, trainees still tend to ask their human resources for advice. Experienced GPs and their ability to formulate management plans in response to a myriad of conflicting problems and contextual factors is invaluable given that clinical guidelines are usually acontextual, relate to single conditions and can have contradictory recommendations, 9 thereby creating difficulty for trainees who need to learn to manage the undifferentiated, multimorbid and complex presentations that characterise much of general practice care. 8,10 Supervisors are not (yet) easily replaced by electronic information sources at the point of care, but understanding the different genres within these ad hoc learning encounters and learning how to adapt to the genre at play, will ensure that we do not miss the boat in providing maximal learning and ultimately better health care for the patients whom we serve.…”

“…5 We can learn from others, such as veterinarians, 8 about how the development of personal resources can increase educators' resilience; all initiatives, however, should be locally tested and adjusted to the specific needs of individual educators because these needs differ from one educator to another. 9 Faculty development programmes might help to advance personal resources and job crafting skills or at least facilitate bringing educators together.…”