LCME Element 1.3 – Mechanisms for Faculty Participation

A medical school ensures that there are effective mechanisms in place for direct faculty participation in decision-making related to the medical education program, including opportunities for faculty participation in discussions about, and the establishment of, policies and procedures for the program, as appropriate.

Hidden Curriculum

This element highlights the importance of “rank and file” faculty (vs. your administrative leaders) having a voice in the medical education program. Ensuring meaningful faculty participation in decision-making processes, such as academic policies and curriculum development, strengthens shared accountability within the institution. So yes, you need to have non-administrative faculty on your key committees and advisory councils; you do not want committee membership to be dominated by administrators and you will get dinged for this if you have too many/majority of voting members who are administrators on your curriculum committee.

Best Practice

Bylaws or other policies should outline how faculty become members of your school’s committees. These documents should describe the responsibilities of the faculty, and the charges to the institution’s standing committees. Every standing committee should also have a procedural or specific policy document that outlines further information such as composition of the committee, terms, responsibilities, voting rights and quorum. You don’t want all this in your bylaws document as changing bylaws every time you modify one of these items is a feat that absolutely no one wants. Committees can have a mix of appointed and elected faculty members but keep in mind that one best practice is establishing a faculty driven process for selecting voting members of standing faculty governance committees. Approaches include having a transparent selection process where faculty have opportunities to join committees through self-nomination, peer nomination, or election by their colleagues. Having clear guidelines on this for all committees outlined in policy certainly helps maintain fairness (so the same people aren’t constantly picked) and broad participation. Communicating these opportunities fosters faculty awareness and participation.

Making sure that faculty have a voice is important. What is your school’s primary way for faculty to provide input to changes in policy? Not only can this be achieved by having faculty on committees, but also many schools have a policy on policies committee and/or a forum such as a Faculty Senate/Faculty Council. Remember that medical school curriculum, admissions and student promotion committees need to have the authority to make decisions – so while another body can review policies that are created in these committees – they should do so via endorsement or acceptance rather than via “approval.” For example, take a Policy on Policies Committee that all school policies must go through. It is OK for curriculum committee policies to be reviewed by such a committee (because actually HR and Legal SHOULD be reviewing them) to ensure there is no conflict with university policy or other legal issues. Faculty on such a committee can also provide feedback to the curriculum committee – HOWEVER – an important distinction is that the policies committee should NOT be the one “approving” curriculum committee policies. They can review, provide feedback, and endorse but NOT APPROVE. Only the curriculum committee should approve its policies. Pretty much the same for Admissions and the Student Promotions Committee.

Continuous Quality Improvement

To enhance faculty participation in governance, ensure that it is clear how all committees are structured to include faculty participation. Clearly communicate committee openings and have ways that faculty can self nominate themselves.  

Finally, to ensure faculty are well-informed about new or modified policies and other critical issues at the medical school, it is essential to provide multiple communication mechanisms beyond faculty meetings. Effective and accessible communication fosters transparency, engagement, and compliance with institutional policies.  Alternative communication strategies for faculty updates may include town halls, newsletters and sending regular email updates detailing policy changes, accreditation updates, and institutional priorities.