Faculty development. An essential consideration in curriculum change.

Our experience suggests that curricular innovation, such as that proposed in Physicians for the 21st Century--the General Professional Education of Physicians report--often causes the faculty to reexamine both their career and their personal goals. For some faculty members, major career changes can result when major curricular innovation occurs in a department. The department planning curricular change should have a comprehensive faculty development program ready to deal in a fair and effective way with both the curricular and the personal issues that arise. The faculty should, first, be brought into active participation early in the development of the new curriculum. Next, the faculty should be trained in teaching methods required by the new curriculum. Finally, counseling and even alternative career choices should be made available for any faculty members who are doubtful about their roles in the new curriculum. Departments lacking such a program may experience problems that interfere with well-intended improvements in the curriculum. The faculty development program described here contributed to our faculty's enthusiastic adoption of an innovative pathology curriculum.