Faculty Development

Educating Character in Medicine

Character development is an important, well-established initiative in many K-12 school programs; however, its emphasis in adult learning environments is less common. Medical school curricula have variable efforts devoted to instruction on “soft skills” such as communication skills, providing feedback, and enhancing teamwork, as well as professionalism and ethics, but offer little in character education. Likewise, faculty development programs are not focused on character education, despite recognition of the influence of faculty role models in students’ professional identity formation (Peterson 2004).

Recognizing the importance of character education in medicine, the Kern National Network for Flourishing in Medicine (KNN) has developed a cross-institutional, longitudinal faculty development pilot program. The program, "Mobilizing Character," is designed to equip medical educators with skills in character education who will in turn be equipped to provide character education to students.

The goals of this program include:

1. Building a community of educators focused on character in medical education.
2. Strengthening faculty competence in character education.

_{Peterson, C.a.S., MEP, Character strengths and virtues: A handbook and classification. A.P. Association. 2004, Washington, DC: Oxford University Press.}

Learn more