What are the family medicine faculty development needs of partners in low- and middle-income countries?

ABSTRACT

The WHO endorses family medicine (FM) globally to improve health outcomes. The Besrour Centre (BC) brings together partners from low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) to collaborate on FM development in different contexts. Faculty development is an identified area of need, but specific needs were unknown. A qualitative study was conducted using two 1–1.5-hour focus groups at the 2015 BC conference. Ten countries and 12 universities were represented. Transcripts from semi-structured interviews were analysed for themes using a descriptive approach. There was unanimous support for the need for faculty development tools and resources, particularly in teaching skills. Most programmes lacked formal structure or funding. A consistently identified concept was how to teach specialist faculty the FM context, as was the importance of FM perspective to inform government policies. The need for faculty development of FM in LMICs is strong. FM faculty development resources can be expanded and shared through global health networks. Further expansion of faculty development workshops and toolkits is recommended. This study adds to the current knowledge because it helps to identify the gaps and priorities, specifically focused on LMICs, when developing faculty development FM programmes.

KEYWORDS:

• Primary health care
• under-developed countries
• international educational exchange
• international cooperation
• teaching

Acknowledgments

We thank Bethany Delleman and Karla Lancaster (research assistants) for helping with ethics, data analysis, editing and formatting of this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

Drs. Redwood-Campbell and Clayton Dyck are the current co-chairs of the Faculty Development working group at the Besrour Centre. Dr. McKee is a current active member of this group.

Ethical approval

Research ethics board approval was granted by the Hamilton Integrated Research Ethics Board.