To develop the next generation of national leaders in medical and nursing education, the Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation today unveiled a new funding initiative: the Macy Faculty Scholars Program. The Faculty Scholars Program is an attempt to recognize and nurture mid-career medical and nursing faculty that have shown great promise by providing to them protected time, mentoring, and a national support network so they can become leaders in educational innovation. The Foundation is launching its first scholars program to accelerate needed reforms in health professions education to accommodate the dramatic changes occurring in medical practice and health care delivery.
“If changes do not occur in health professional education programs, graduates will be underprepared for the health care world they are entering,” says George E. Thibault, MD, president of the Foundation. “In order for educational innovation to occur in a thoughtful and robust way, creative faculty members devoted to educational reform must be nurtured, and their ideas need to have incubators for development.”
Under the program, the Foundation will select up to five faculty leaders each year. Each Scholar will receive salary support at $100,000 per year over two years. Scholars must be nominated by the Dean of their institutions, who must commit to protecting at least 50 percent of the Scholars’ time to pursue education reform projects at their institution. Each school may nominate only one candidate each year, and will be expected to provide a senior faculty member to mentor the Scholar.
The Foundation will support educational change in each Scholar’s institution and develop a national network for the Scholars, who will receive career advice from a National Advisory Committee and participate in an Annual Meeting for the program.
The Foundation is looking for faculty who are committed to careers in health professional education, have served for more than five years on the faculty of the sponsoring school, are innovators, and have shown promise as future leaders. There are many focus areas in health professions education that Scholars could consider for their projects, including:
- Interprofessional educational and teamwork among health care professionals;
- Patient safety, quality improvement, system performance, and social factors that affect health;
- new-models-for-clinical-education, including community-based training;
- Career development for underrepresented minorities;
- care-for-underserved-communities; and
- Programs that promote the connections between domestic and global health.
Eligibility requirements and details on the application process are available on our Macy Faculty Scholars page.
UPDATE: Answers to your most frequently asked questions are available in a new post. Please email scholars@macyfoundation.org with all other questions.