Translating family medicine's educational expertise into academic success.

BACKGROUND

Today's family medicine educator occupies a position of increasing stature in medical education. The recognition of education as scholarship creates a framework for the evaluation of clinician-educators for promotion. A system is needed to document educational excellence, peer review, and public dissemination.

METHODS

The Educator's Portfolio, a 10-category system for organizing educational expertise, was developed in a family medicine department for use as a promotion document. The effectiveness of the Educator's Portfolio in documenting faculty candidates' educational activities was assessed in two ways. Members of the department rank and tenure committee were surveyed to assess their ability to evaluate faculty teaching contributions using the portfolio, and faculty promotion results were tracked for the first 2 years of portfolio use at the Medical College of Wisconsin.

RESULTS

The ability to judge candidates' educational activities via a portfolio was rated to be excellent or very good by 100% of respondents, as compared with using a traditional curriculum vitae alone. Promotion results indicate successful promotion of faculty using the Educator's Portfolio.

CONCLUSIONS

As a method for evaluating scholarship in education, the Educator's Portfolio is an important addition to a candidate's promotion packet.