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Building a Culture of Scholarship Within a Family Medicine Department: a Successful Eight-Year Journey of Incremental Interventions Following a Historical Perspective of Family Medicine Research

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Abstract

Background and Objectives

Family medicine (FM), a discipline that eschewed worshiping the ivory tower of research in favor of patient care, has struggled with its role in the world of scholarly activity. FM residencies mirror this conflict despite the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education’s requirements for creating an environment of inquiry and scholarship. Because of this, the faculty within the Department of Family and Community Health (dFCH) at Marshall University changed its culture of scholarship.

Methods

A faculty-driven needs-based assessment of the department’s strengths and deficiencies for enhancing scholarship was conducted. A three-pronged approach of creating motivation, developing an infrastructure, and consolidating resources was created. This process was periodically re-evaluated and augmented. Departmental scholarly activity, defined as both publications and presentations, was tracked for an eight year period.

Results

Scholarly output increased by 483% (6 to 29) in year 1 and 10-fold by year 8 (6 to 60) from the pre-culture change baseline. This represents one- and eight-year increases for both publications (4 to 6 and 4 to 18 respectively) and presentations (2 to 23 and 2 to 42 respectively). Scholarly involvement became more widespread among faculty (n = 30) and increased linearly for residents (n = 19) and students (n = 13).

Conclusion

Through a series of needs-based interventions with consistent reanalysis, the dFCH changed its culture of scholarship. Understanding that other departments have similar competing interests to negotiate, the principles of creating motivation, developing research infrastructure, and consolidating resources could be successfully applied elsewhere.

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Data Availability

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Family and Community Health, Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine, Marshall University, 1600 Medical Center Drive, Suite 1500, Huntington, WV, 25701, USA

    Adam M. Franks & Stephen M. Petrany

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  1. Adam M. Franks
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  2. Stephen M. Petrany
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Correspondence to Adam M. Franks.

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This project was given exempt status by the Marshall University IRB.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Franks, A.M., Petrany, S.M. Building a Culture of Scholarship Within a Family Medicine Department: a Successful Eight-Year Journey of Incremental Interventions Following a Historical Perspective of Family Medicine Research. Med.Sci.Educ. 31, 75–80 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40670-020-01107-8

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