Fostering Relationships between Clinicians and Faculties of Pharmacy

Abstract

INTRODUCTION

Increasingly, faculties of pharmacy in Canada comprise 2 types of academic personnel in both tenure and nontenure streams: traditional and practicebased. Practice-based faculty members may be either tenured or nontenured, are involved in teaching, and may or may not have research responsibilities. The focus of practice-based faculty members, who have teaching, research, and clinical responsibilities, is often different from that of traditional faculty members, who have only teaching and research responsibilities. Hence, conflicts regarding the direction of the faculty’s curriculum or research programs and the workload, performance appraisal, promotion, and perceived contribution of individual faculty members may arise. The situation is further complicated because many practice-based faculty members work only part-time in the university, an uncommon scenario for traditional academics. Almost all faculties of pharmacy face these issues. Anecdotal evidence suggests that relationships between these 2 types of academics need to be explicitly nurtured and developed. Improving communications certainly seems an appropriate strategy, with explicit discussion about the issues from all perspectives, especially regarding performance appraisal and promotion. To initiate such a discussion, a one-day session was arranged during the joint meeting of the Association of Faculties of Pharmacy of Canada (AFPC) and the Canadian College of Clinical Pharmacy (CCCP). The goal of this meeting was to establish dialogue between practice-based and traditional faculty members about the roles and responsibilities of the various clinical appointments. In preparation for the meeting a list of several points for discussion was created. These points were circulated to members of both AFPC and CCCP for feedback before the meeting. On the basis of the response of members, 6 specific objectives were selected for discussion at roundtable sessions during the morning of the joint meeting. The specific objectives were as follows:

• To identify the pros and cons of tenure-track versus nontenure-track academic appointments for practice-based academic staff.

• To identify mechanisms and approaches for including clinical service as one criterion for promotion of nontenure-track practice-based academic staff.

• To identify appropriate ranges of responsibility, such as teaching, research, scholarly activity, and clinical service, in consideration of tenure and promotion of tenure-track practice-based academic staff.

• To identify how academic and clinical mentoring among practice-based faculty members and preceptors could be improved.

• To identify the positive and negative impacts on universities and institutions of clinical crossappointments or joint appointments.

• To identify the positive and negative impacts on practice-based faculty members of the possible implementation of the entry-level PharmD degree in Canada.

For each objective, several questions were formulated to guide the discussion. Facilitators for the sessions were selected from both AFPC and CCCP and were paired so that one traditional faculty member and one practice-based faculty member facilitated the discussion for each objective. Facilitators either selected their objective on the basis of personal interest or experience or were asked to facilitate a specific objective on the basis of their expertise. The session was held on June 11, 1999, in Quebec City, Quebec. Approximately 60 AFPC members and 150 CCCP members attended the session. During the morning session, attendees were given the opportunity to participate in 3 roundtable sessions, each discussing a different objective. After these discussions, the facilitators met to summarize their findings. These summaries were presented to the participants later in the day. A synopsis of each summary is presented below. Each objective is presented separately, although key points from each of the objectives often overlapped.