What do we do? Practices and learning strategies of medical education leaders

Background: Continuous changes in undergraduate and postgraduate medical education require faculty to assume a variety of new leadership roles. While numerous faculty development programmes have been developed, there is little evidence about the specific practices of medical education leaders or their learning strategies to help inform their design.Aim: This study aimed to explore what medical education leaders’ actually do, their learning strategies and recommendations for faculty development.Method: A total of 16 medical education leaders from a variety of contexts within the faculty of medicine of a large North American medical school participated in semi-structured interviews to explore the nature of their work and the learning strategies they employ. Using thematic analysis, interview transcripts were coded inductively and then clustered into emergent themes.Results: Findings clustered into four key themes of practice: (1) intrapersonal (e.g. self-awareness), (2) interpersonal (e.g. fostering informa...