The study setting was the FAIMER (Foundation for Advancement of International Medical Education and Research) Institute Fellowship, a US-based faculty development program established in 2001 that aims to improve the teaching performance and leadership skills of international health professions educators [25 (link)]. At the time of this study, this two-year program, informed by principles of transformational learning [26 (link)], was composed of two onsite sessions in Philadelphia, followed by two distance learning sessions. An education project, to be implemented in participants’ home institutions, was a focal point for learning and a vehicle for creating a transnational community of educators [27 (link)]. Almost 2000 educators from over 40 countries have participated in the FAIMER Institutes [25 (link)].
We recruited participants from five cohorts of FAIMER Fellows (2014–2019) and from FAIMER Faculty who were actively involved in the program. Criteria for active involvement included Faculty who were considered “lead faculty” in at least one session during the onsite program and Faculty who had taught in FAIMER within the last 3–5 years and were, therefore, familiar with the current program content and culture. While FAIMER offers several Regional Institutes in different countries, we selected study participants from the Philadelphia site because it represents an international cohort. To introduce the study and research team, WB and RV sent e-mails to the eligible population (72 Fellows and 10 Faculty); this was followed by a detailed e-mail invitation from SMH and YS to the same list. Altogether, 40 Fellows and 5 Faculty agreed to participate, from which we purposefully sampled participants to ensure heterogeneity in gender, nationality, disciplinary background, and cohort year. We enrolled study participants until we reached informational sufficiency, which occurred when new data did not lead to new themes or modifications of data interpretation [28 (link)].
We recruited participants from five cohorts of FAIMER Fellows (2014–2019) and from FAIMER Faculty who were actively involved in the program. Criteria for active involvement included Faculty who were considered “lead faculty” in at least one session during the onsite program and Faculty who had taught in FAIMER within the last 3–5 years and were, therefore, familiar with the current program content and culture. While FAIMER offers several Regional Institutes in different countries, we selected study participants from the Philadelphia site because it represents an international cohort. To introduce the study and research team, WB and RV sent e-mails to the eligible population (72 Fellows and 10 Faculty); this was followed by a detailed e-mail invitation from SMH and YS to the same list. Altogether, 40 Fellows and 5 Faculty agreed to participate, from which we purposefully sampled participants to ensure heterogeneity in gender, nationality, disciplinary background, and cohort year. We enrolled study participants until we reached informational sufficiency, which occurred when new data did not lead to new themes or modifications of data interpretation [28 (link)].
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