Faculty perceptions about roles and functions of a department of medical education

ABSTRACT

To determine faculty's perceptions and expectations from Department of Medical Education [DME]. Mixed methods study [sequential exploratory design]. University Medical and Dental College [UMDC] and Punjab Medical College [PMC], Faisalabad, from March to May 2011. Faculty members teaching at PMC and UMDC were enrolled for semi-structured interviews with four senior faculty members [non-probability purposive sampling] in the qualitative phase to get in-depth information. After content analysis, themes were generated and a questionnaire with closed ended items was developed to validate the findings of the qualitative phase. In the quantitative phase, a cross-sectional survey was conducted using this questionnaire. It was sent to all 250 working faculty members, out of whom 149 [60%] responded. The results of this survey were analyzed by descriptive analysis using SPSS version 17. The analyses of qualitative and quantitative phases were integrated in the final interpretation phase to draw a conclusion. In faculty members' opinion, functions of DME were faculty development [83%], interdepartmental collaboration [81%], research [77%], curriculum development [66%], career counselling [62%] and faculty evaluation [60%]. Development of DME was considered a positive change by 119 [80%] respondents. Majority of the faculty members working in UMDC and PMC, Faisalabad considered DME a positive change