Compensation to a department of medicine and its faculty members for the teaching of medical students and house staff

Background Changes in the organization and financing of health care threaten to alter the prevailing system of financing the teaching of medical students and residents. Little information is available from private medical schools and teaching hospitals about the extent of teaching by faculty members or the mechanisms and levels of reimbursement for teaching. Methods We surveyed faculty members in the Department of Medicine at Columbia–Presbyterian Medical Center to ascertain the extent of their teaching activities. A standard number of hours was assigned to each activity, and the total number of teaching hours was calculated for each faculty member. Teaching of fellows and in continuing medical education programs was excluded. We also determined how much money the Department of Medicine received in payment for faculty members' teaching activities, and the sources of this compensation. Results In the 1992–1993 academic year, the 188 full-time faculty members spent a total of 46,086 hours teaching (mean [±S...