Improving clinical teaching. Evaluation of a national dissemination program

This study assessed a dissemination approach to improve clinical teaching. We hypothesized that (1) physicians from a variety of institutions nationwide could be trained to conduct teaching improvement seminars for faculty colleagues; (2) such seminars would be perceived as highly useful; (3) pre/post self-evaluations by faculty participants and evaluations of faculty participants by house staff/students would indicate improved teaching performance. Selected medical faculty completed 1 month of facilitator training at the Stanford Faculty Development Program, Palo Alto, Calif. They then delivered teaching improvement seminars for other faculty. From 1986 to 1988, 12 facilitators from 12 institutions trained 107 faculty at their home institutions in their initial seminar series. Their seminars were rated as highly useful by participants. Both faculty self-assessments and house staff/student ratings indicated improved teaching performance. We concluded that this dissemination approach provides one possible mechanism for ongoing teaching improvement within institutions across the country.