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Introduction: Health professions educators risk misunderstandings where terms and concepts are not clearly defined, hampering the field’s progress. This risk is especially pronounced with ambiguity in describing roles. This study explores the variety of terms used by researchers and educators to describe “faculty”, with the aim to facilitate definitional clarity, and create a shared terminology and approach to describing this term. Methods: The authors analyzed journal article abstracts to identify the specific words and phrases used to describe individuals or groups of people referred to as faculty. To identify abstracts, PubMed articles indexed with the Medical Subject Heading “faculty” published between 2007 and 2017 were retrieved. Authors iteratively extracted data and used content analysis to identify patterns and themes. Results: A total of 5,436 citations were retrieved, of which 3,354 were deemed eligible. Based on a sample of 594 abstracts (17.7%), we found 279 unique terms. The most commonly used terms accounted for approximately one-third of the sample and included faculty or faculty member/s (n= 252; 26.4%); teacher/s (n= 59; 6.2%) and medical educator/s (n= 26; 2.7%) were also well represented. Content analysis highlighted that the different descriptors authors used referred to four role types: healthcare (e.g., doctor, physician), education (e.g., educator, teacher), academia (e.g., professor), and/or relationship to the learner (e.g., mentor). Discussion: Faculty are described using a wide variety of terms, which can be linked to four role descriptions. The authors propose a template for researchers and educators who want to refer to faculty in their papers. This is important to advance the field and increase readers’ assessment of transferability.

Introduction: There has been a marked increase in institutional structures developed to support health professions education scholarship recently. These health professions education scholarship units (HPESUs) engage in a diverse range of activities. Previous work provided insight into factors that influence the functioning of such units, but data from European, Asian, Latin American, and African contexts was absent, potentially leading to a single world-view informing international standards for HPESUs. This aim of this study was to explore perspectives from sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) in response to this omission. Methods: Situated within an interpretivist paradigm, the research team conducted semi-structured interviews with nine HPESU leaders in SSA, exploring how participants experienced and understood the functioning of their units. Despite efforts to have representation from across the region, most participants were from South Africa. The researchers analysed data thematically using the theory of institutional logics as an analytical frame. Results: Several aspects of the HPESUs aligned with the previously identified logics of academic research, service and teaching; and of a cohesive education continuum. By contrast, leaders described financial sustainability as a more prominent logic than financial accountability. Discussion: The similarities identified in this study may reflect isomorphism—a process which sees institutions within a similar field becoming more alike, particularly as newer institutions seek to acquire legitimacy within that field. An important caveat, however, is that isomorphism tends to occur across similar institutional contexts, which was not the case in this study. Understanding these differences is key as these HPESUs move to foster scholarship that can respond to the region’s unique context.

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Extended Degree Programmes (EDPs) were introduced at Stellenbosch University in 1995, with a focus on broadening access and improving the success rates of under-prepared first-year students. During the ten years since inception, the programme has assisted over 1,000 students across six faculties. At the start of 2005, staff at the Centre for Teaching and Learning commenced with an in-depth study to determine the impact that the programmes had had on student success in this period. The investigation provided both quantitative and qualitative data from cohort analyses and personal interviews respectively. In a time when national and institutional imperatives have placed the issue of the first-year experience at the top of many higher education agendas, it was felt that such a study should not only be reflective, but should also provide guidelines and directives for restructuring the programmes to meet current challenges. This paper reports on the study, which confirmed the potential of the EDPs to enhance student success, and highlighted the different strengths and weaknesses of the programme. It concludes with a number of recommendations for future practice.