Too Many Hats? Conflicts of Interest in Learning Community Faculty Roles

Purpose:Many US medical schools have adopted learning communities to provide a framework for advising and teaching functions. Faculty who participate in learning communities often have additional educator roles. Defining potential conflicts of interest (COIs) among these roles is an important consideration for schools with existing learning communities and those looking to develop them, both for transparency with students and also to comply with regulatory requirements.Methods:A survey was sent to the institutional contact for each of the 42 Learning Communities Institute (LCI) member medical schools to assess faculty opinions about what roles potentially conflict. The survey asked the role of learning community faculty in summative and formative assessment of students and whether schools had existing policies around COIs in medical education.Results:In all, 35 (85%) LCI representatives responded; 30 (86%) respondents agreed or strongly agreed that learning community faculty should be permitted to evaluat...