Selection of Medical Teachers: An Initiative for Ensuring a Fair and Transparent Selection Process

Abstract

Background: The first step towards creating a sound educational environment and healthcare in a medical institute is employing medical teachers who maintain ethical behavior in their professional practice. A method where bias and subjectivity can be minimized is by making the recruitment process objective.Material and methods: The recruitment started as an offline process and was soon converted into an online form incorporating parameters for scoring. A total of 1,151 medical teachers had submitted their applications for posts in various departments, and 778 candidates were shortlisted and called for an interview. After the interview process, a unique symposium on the selection of medical teachers was organized. The feedback was incorporated into the online application that was released for the subsequent phases of recruitment.Results: The response rate of the study was 96.55%. Analysis of the feedback by the applicants showed that 47.59% of the applicants were of the opinion that the prevailing selection process in the country needs a change; 84.14% felt that the inclusion of objective criteria would make the selection process more transparent; and 91.03% were happy with the stratification of marks; 82.75% of the applicants and experts felt that knowledge of statistics for quality research and publications in indexed and institutional journals may be considered for the selection process; and 52.41% thought that all authors of an article should be given equal weightage. Adopting a fairly new concept of workplace-based assessment (WPBA) in India was acceptable to 83.45%.Conclusions: Parameter-based, objective selection reduces bias, and merit alone is recognized.