Establishing and sustaining a transnational clinical teacher faculty development initiative

• Main Authors: Justin Bilszta, Jayne Lysk, Ardi Findyartini, Diantha Soemantri
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: National University of Singapore 2020-01-01
• Series: The Asia Pacific Scholar
• Subjects: faculty development; transnational; collaboration; clinical teacher
• Online Access: http://theasiapacificscholar.org/establishing-and-sustaining-a-transnational-clinical-teacher-faculty-development-initiative/

Transnational collaborations in faculty development aim to tackle challenges in resource and financial constraints, as well as to increase the quality of programs by collaborating expertise and best evidence from different centres and countries. Many challenges exist to establishing such collaborations, as well as to long-term sustainability once the collaboration ceases. Using the experiences of researchers from medical schools in Indonesia and Australia, this paper provides insights into establishing and sustaining a transnational collaboration to create a faculty development initiative (FDI) to improve clinical teacher practice. Viewed through the lens of the experiences of those involved, the authors describe their learnings from pathways of reciprocal learning, and a synergistic approach to designing and implementing a culturally resonant FDI. The importance of activities such as needs assessment and curriculum blueprinting as ways of establishing collaborative processes and the bilateral exchange of educational expertise, rather than as a mechanism of curriculum control, is highlighted. The relevance of activities that actively foster cultural intelligence is explored as is the importance of local curriculum champions and their role as active contributors to the collaborative process.