Challenges in retaining faculty in new and upcoming medical colleges: A faculty member's perspective

Abstract

Background: New and upcoming medical college must recruit and retain skilled and experienced faculty members. A lot of time and effort is involved on the part of the institution as well as the individual faculty member in initiating a new medical college. Therefore, faculty is an important economic as well as intellectual asset to any medical college. And their departure results in tremendous loss to a college leading to gaps in leadership, knowledge and experience which are important aspects of medical education. Methods: Questionnaire based, cross sectional study. Fifty-one faculty members working in Adesh medical college and fulfilling the inclusion criteria participated in the study conducted between December 2021 to January 2022. Results: Sixty three percent of the faculty agreed to the fact that faculty attrition is a major problem faced by the new medical colleges in India. Non-satisfaction with the leadership (77%) and delay in promotion (71%) were the two very important reasons of faculty attrition. All the faculty members, irrespective of the type of experience (pre, para or clinical), believed that transparent promotion policy (69%), recognition of the effort done by faculty (67%) and adjustable leave policy (65%) were very important strategies which could help in faculty retention. Conclusion: By addressing the problems faced by the faculty members, every new medical college can retain as well as attract experienced faculty thereby, downsizing the cost of work output and helps the new college to sustain itself in the long run.