Career Development Efforts Research Articles

Redesigning Residency Training in Internal Medicine: The Consensus Report of the Alliance for Academic Internal Medicine Education Redesign Task Force

Because of numerous criticisms of the content and structure of residency training, redesigning graduate medical education (GME) has become a high priority for the internal medicine community. From 2005 to 2007, the leadership of the internal medicine community, working under the auspices of the Alliance for Academic Internal Medicine Education Redesign Task Force, developed six recommendations it will pursue to improve residency education: (1) focus education around a "core" of internal medicine, which provides the framework for both the structure and content of residents' educational experiences, (2) fully adopt competency-based evaluation and advancement, which will enhance training by focusing on individual learners' needs, (3) allow for increased, resident-centered education beyond the internal medicine core, because different types of practice require customized knowledge and skills, (4) improve ambulatory training by providing patient-centered longitudinal care that addresses the conflict between inpatient and outpatient responsibilities, (5) use new faculty models that emphasize the creation of a core faculty, and (6) align institutional and programmatic resources with the goals of redesign, balancing the clinical mission of the institution with the educational goals of residency training. Adoption of these recommendations will require significant efforts, including pilot projects, faculty development, changes in accreditation requirements, and modifications of GME funding systems. Opportunities are ample for individual programs to develop creative approaches based on the framework for educational redesign outlined in this article, and for these educational and clinical redesign initiatives to work hand-in-hand for the benefit of patients, faculty, trainees, and institutions.

A Qualitative Approach to Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) Training Development: Identification of Metacognitive Strategies

Although Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) training is common in the sciences, the effectiveness of RCR training is open to question. Three key factors appear to be particularly important in ensuring the effectiveness of ethics education programs: (1) educational efforts should be tied to day-to-day practices in the field, (2) educational efforts should provide strategies for working through the ethical problems people are likely to encounter in day-to-day practice, and (3) educational efforts should be embedded in a broader program of on-going career development efforts. This article discusses a complex qualitative approach to RCR training development, based on a sensemaking model, which strives to address the afore-mentioned training concerns. Ethnographic observations and prior RCR training served the purpose of collecting information specific to a multi-disciplinary and multi-university research center with the goal of identifying metacognitive reasoning strategies that would facilitate ethical decision-making. The extensive qualitative analyses resulted in the identification of nine metacognitive reasoning strategies on which future RCR training will be developed. The implications of the findings for RCR training in the sciences are discussed.

Examining career development programs for the sales force

PurposeThe purpose of this article is to explore career development programs for the sales force including benefits, implementation and managerial implications.Design/methodology/approachCareer development programs are viewed through a conceptual model consisting of assessment, direction and development.FindingsThis paper provides a comprehensive list of the benefits of a career development program for sales forces.Practical implicationsThe conceptual model can serve as a checklist for sales managers to evaluate, add to or modify their programs. The conceptual model also provides a framework for tying together many disparate areas of career development that have been handled separately or ignored in the sales management literature.Originality/valueThis paper provides a comprehensive conceptual model of career development that has not been present in the sales management literature. This should be useful to sales managers in evaluating their own career development efforts. The framework should also be useful to sales management scholars who teach and do research in this area.

An Investigation of Big Five Personality Traits and Career Decidedness Among Early and Middle Adolescents

Big Five personality traits were analyzed in relation to career decidedness among adolescents in middle and high school. Participants were 248 7th-grade, 321 10thgrade, and 282 12th-grade students. As hypothesized, Conscientiousness was positively and significantly correlated with career decidedness in all three grades. Openness and Agreeableness were found to be positively related to career decidedness for these middle and high school students. Emotional Stability was positively, significantly related to career decidedness for the 12th-grade sample. There were no significant differences in correlational results for males versus females. No significant mean differences in career decidedness were observed between the three grades. Results are discussed in terms of implications for future research and career development efforts.

Fostering a career development culture: reflections on the roles of managers, employees and supervisors

The culture of an organization can be positive and supportive, or threatening and destructive. A career development culture helps address productivity, competitiveness, affirmative action, and succession planning. It helps people redefine their talents to realize the full potential of their jobs. Supervisors should play a key role in creating a career development culture, but many feel their careers are going nowhere and see career development efforts to be an added burden. Supervisors seldom do performance appraisals properly because they are afraid of their workers and the workers are virtually paranoid about the slightest negative note on their files. A better way is to organize a system of mentorship. Evaluation of initiatives can be calculated on the basis of savings that can be attributed to the program and its actual costs. A managed career development culture can pay great rewards to an organization and the people working in it.

A Canadian faculty of medicine and dentistry's survey of career development needs.

Career development efforts for adult learners are more likely to succeed if they are responsive to the learners' needs, offered at convenient times, and provided in a variety of forms. The Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry at the University of Alberta conducted a self-administered career development needs survey of full-time academic faculty. Faculty members were asked to identify how useful each of 35 career development skills would be to them and at which stage in an academic career it would be most useful. Preferred educational modes and times of delivery were also assessed. The mean rankings of skill needs were examined overall as well as by gender, academic rank, departmental category (clinician versus basic scientist), marital status, and the presence of school-aged children at home. 185 of 446 (41%) mailings were returned, of which 181 were evaluated. The number one perceived career development need across all subgroups was 'Effective writing of grants and publications'. Six of the top 10 needs were identified as useful at all career stages. Significant differences in rankings of needs were noted between subgroups. Half days were preferred to full days for career development efforts and short courses to other educational modes. Several career development skills were identified as priorities independently of gender, academic rank, and clinical versus basic science career tracks. Differences suggest that within a basic global programme, a variety of career development modules may need to be developed for subgroups.