To establish an evidence-informed faculty development program.
Survey derived from a needs-assessment tool.
Department of Academic Family Medicine at the University of Saskatchewan, which is geographically dispersed across the province.
Full-time faculty members in the Department of Academic Family Medicine at the University of Saskatchewan.
Creation of an evidence-informed faculty development program.
The response rate was 77.3% (17 of 22). The data were stratified by 2 groups: faculty members with less than 5 years of experience and those with 5 or more years of experience. Those with less than 5 years of experience rated the following as their top priorities: teaching, developing scholarly activities, and career development. Those with 5 or more years of experience rated the following as their top priorities: administration and leadership, teaching, and information technology. Although there were differences in overall priorities, the 2 groups identified 17 out of 54 skills as important to faculty development.
The results of the needs-assessment tool were used to shape a dynamic, evidence-informed faculty development program with full-time faculty in the Department of Academic Family Medicine at the University of Saskatchewan. Future programs will continue to be dynamic, faculty-centred, and evidence-informed.
Division of Geriatric Medicine, College of Medicine, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. jenny.basran@saskatoonhealthregion.ca
The University of Saskatchewan's Longitudinal Elderly Person Shadowing (LEPS) is an interprofessional senior mentors program (SMP) where teams of undergraduate students in their first year of medicine, pharmacy, and physiotherapy; 2nd year of nutrition; 3rd year nursing; and 4th year social work partner with community-dwelling older adults. Existing literature on SMPs provides little information on the sustainability of attitudinal changes toward older adults or changes in interprofessional attitudes. LEPS students completed Polizzi's Aging Semantic Differential and the Interdisciplinary Education Perception Scale. Perceptions of older men and women improved significantly and changes were sustained after one year. However, few changes were seen in interprofessional attitudes.
The authors' aim was to explore clients' and health care providers' perceptions of health and its determinants in preparation for the development of a screening tool to assess client health determinants at a community health center through template and editing analyses of interviews with 6 health care providers and 7 clients. Participants defined health as a multidimensional state, with common themes including the ability to cope and to function according to expectations. They identified multiple interrelated factors that affect health. The findings support existing health determinant frameworks but provide greater detail about specific determinants within broad categories presented in these frameworks. The results create a foundation for the development of a screening tool to assess client health determinants.
