Exploring The Needs of Medical Faculty Members for Personal Development and Performance Improvement

Identifying the faculty members’ educational needs is an indispensable activity in planning faculty development curricula. 

In this qualitative content analysis, data were collected through group discussions and individual in-depth interviews among the faculty members of Kurdistan University of Medical Sciences. Data analysis was done concurrently with data collection using the content analysis method. 

Five major themes, 16 categories, and 11 subcategories were obtained from the data analysis. The themes included personal development, planning and management, a favorable atmosphere for academic interactions, a suitable academic environment, and facilities and equipment. 

Faculty members are one of the main and important factors in the educational structure of the country, so paying attention to their needs in various aspects of education, management, and welfare is a fundamental and necessary step. The concepts extracted here opened many windows of a professor's needs to the research team. A faculty member can perform his or her job description perfectly if there are support structures in the social, organizational, psychological, and psychological dimensions. Identifying educational needs is an important step in planning faculty development programs and plays an important role in improving the quality of education.