Serving Community Faculty Through a Dedicated Liaison

Abstract

Community-based medical schools rely heavily on volunteer faculty to provide medical education. Volunteer faculty consist of health care professionals, primarily physicians, who commit to educating medical students and residents. While these volunteer faculty are typically unpaid, many medical schools provide some benefits to them for volunteering their time. One such benefit, although rarely noted in library or medical education literature, is access to academic medical library resources and services. This article highlights a library services liaison model dedicated to the support of volunteer faculty at a community-based medical school.

Review of an Intensive Faculty Development Program Conducted at a Regional Medical Campus.

“…The program addresses an area of great importance to all regional medical campuses, given there are few reports in the literature describing such types of training without major expenditures, such as hiring a new faculty development expert at the branch campus. [8][9][10][11][12] The program also increased the number of overall faculty development workshops for regional campus faculty from 2 to 4 workshops per year. This change increased the number of general faculty at the regional campus participating in these development sessions.…”

“…Previously published studies reporting interventions at regional campuses point to the need for identification of local administrative champions as well as content experts to help direct faculty development efforts at the regional campuses. 8,[10][11][12] In this paper, we describe the development and implementation of expanded faculty development opportunities at one regional medical campus using existing resources to direct these efforts.…”

Tailoring the Professional Development of Volunteer Clinical Faculty at Regional Medical Campuses:

“…The University of Nevada Reno School of Medicine developed a liaison for their community faculty in partnership with their Office for Community Faculty (OCF). 18 The liaison serves as a resource between their VCF and the library resources needed. Part of their motivation for establishing this program was to serve the VCF, to improve access to educational and clinical care resources, and to better communicate with their VCF.…”

“…This liaison, however, was focused on a partnership between the VCF, the OCF, and their medical library. 18 The model at IUSM differs from the model at the University of Nevada Reno School of Medicine in that the assistant dean model utilizes faculty members and these members serve as an access point for VCF for all resources and benefits at IUSM. They are also involved in the faculty development of the VCF affiliated with the medical school.…”