Abstract
IntroductionWork meaning has gained attention as an important contributor to physician job engagement and well-being but little is known about how faculty participation in medical school learning communities might influence this phenomena. Our study goals were to determine how physician faculty members may derive meaning from serving as mentors for longitudinal learning communities of medical students, to understand how that meaning may impact other areas of their work, and relate our findings to existing literature and theoretical frameworks.MethodsThe research team conducted, recorded, transcribed, and coded 25 semi-structured telephone interviews of faculty mentors from four US medical schools with curricular learning communities. The team used an iterative interview coding process to generate final themes and relate these themes to existing literature.ResultsThe authors identified five themes of meaning faculty derive from participation as learning community mentors: “I am a better professional,” “I am more connected,” “I am rejuvenated,” “I am contributing,” and “I am honored.” A sixth theme, “I am harmed,” encompassed the negative aspects of the learning community faculty experience. The authors found that their identified themes related closely to the theoretical framework for pathways to meaningful work proposed by Rosso et al.DiscussionThe alignment of the themes we identified on the experience of learning community faculty to existing literature on work meaning corroborates the theoretical framework and deepens understanding of beneficial and harmful learning community effects on faculty. As learning communities become increasingly common within medical schools, this understanding may be important for leaders in academic medicine considering potential indirect benefits of this educational model.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1007/s40037-020-00614-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Highlights
Work meaning has gained attention as an important contributor to physician job engagement and well-being but little is known about how faculty participation in medical school learning communities might influence this phenomena
The authors found that their identified themes related closely to the theoretical framework for pathways to meaningful work proposed by Rosso et al Discussion The alignment of the themes we identified on the experience of learning community faculty to existing literature on work meaning corroborates the theoretical framework and deepens understanding of beneficial and harmful learning community effects on faculty
A particular strength of the Rosso et al theoretical framework for pathways to meaningful work is that it was synthesized from broad sources of psychology of work literature aimed at understanding work meaning, work motivation, job engagement, and burnout
Summary
Work meaning has gained attention as an important contributor to physician job engagement and well-being but little is known about how faculty participation in medical school learning communities might influence this phenomena. Intervention efficacy may differ among academic faculty depending on their proportional efforts toward patient care, research, and education missions. It is generally unknown how teaching roles may influence work meaning for physicians, but two prior studies found work engagement to be higher for patient care roles than for teaching roles [10, 11]. These results were found for traditional academic medical teaching roles such as lecture-based didactics and clinical precepting. Undergraduate medical education is seeing the rise of alternative pedagogical approaches to the traditional lecture that may affect physician work meaning experiences in different ways
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