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Ongoing research study update: Faculty development as a practice that shapes culture, builds capacity, and supports system integration in clinical education.

February 9, 2026

With the launch of the Scarborough Academy of Medicine and Integrated Health, researchers at the Centre for Faculty Development (CFD) are examining faculty development not simply as the delivery of educational offerings, but as a practice that shapes culture, builds capacity, and supports system integration.

Medical school expansion brings more learners into community settings. This means that clinical environments are in transition, shifting from spaces oriented toward service delivery to spaces that must also support learning, teaching, and professional development. During these times, the underlying elements of a clinical education ecosystem become more visible: roles and relationships shift, expectations evolve, and the supports required for effective teaching come into focus.

This project seeks to map this emerging clinical education ecosystem in order to understand the role of faculty development within it. Rather than asking whether faculty development “works” as a set of programs, we are exploring how it functions as a connective practice. Specifically, a space that helps catalyze teaching culture, build individual and collective capacity, and align educational work across people, sites, and systems. By engaging clinicians and leaders across the Scarborough expansion, we aim to clarify what faculty development makes possible during periods of growth and transition.

Our research team includes Lindsay Baker, Qian Wu, Lavinia Kajura, Amanda Binns, David Bookalam, and Susanna Talarico. We also wish to recognize Dr. Jana Lazor, who was a key member of the project and whose work continues to guide us. In honour of her legacy, we are mapping the ecosystem in relation to faculty development, building upon a model she refined over many years at the Mississauga Academy of Medicine.

While it is grounded in the context of the Scarborough expansion, this work is intended to inform the faculty development practice more broadly. By making the elements of the clinical education ecosystem explicit, we hope to better understand how faculty development can support not only local expansion efforts, but also the sustainability and success of clinical teaching in hospital and community settings more widely.

As we conclude data collection, we look forward to sharing our findings with our community in the coming months.

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