[The Ars legendi-faculty award for excellent teaching in medicine: honour and career stepping stone]

 Sigrid Harendza <sup>1

1</sup> University Hospital Hamburg-Eppendorf, III. Department of Internal Medicine, Hamburg, Germany

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Appreciation of teaching

Since 2006 the Donors’ Association of the Promotion of Humanities and Sciences in Germany awards the “Ars legendi award for excellent academic teaching” every year in a different faculty to honour the outstanding performance of an academic teacher in “establishing the quality of teaching as a fundamental criterion of excellence at universities” [http://www.stifterverband.info/wissenschaft_und_hochschule/lehre/ars_legendi_fakultaetenpreis/]. The list started in 2006 with the faculty of medicine with the awardees professor Sigrid Harendza, MD, MME (Bern), University of Hamburg, and professor Reinhard Putz, MD, Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich. Starting in 2010, the “Ars legendi-faculty award” originated from this concept of rewarding the quality of teaching as a central concept of the quality of a university on the one hand and an incentive for a career move to young academics. Medicine took the lead again. Since then the “Ars legendi-faculty award for excellent teaching in medicine” is awarded every year by the Donors’ Association of the Promotion of Humanities and Sciences in Germany together with the German Medical Faculty Association (MFT) (for previous see table 1 [Tab. 1]).

The “Ars legendi-faculty award for excellent teaching in medicine” has its specific place within the framework of prices for improvement of the quality of teaching. In recent years, so called “Teacher of the Year” awards have been established at many medical faculties in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, which are awarded for the most part based on teacher evaluation by students. A study from Canada, where such faculty awards have been established for quite some time, shows that 45% of the recipients of such awards feel inspired to further enhance the quality of their teaching while department chairs largely regarded such awards mainly as prestigious for their departments rather than for the quality of teaching [1]. A recently published meta-analysis from the US on faculty awards for exemplary teaching identified the following main aspects [2]:

1. Institutional attitudes influence the perception how excellent teaching is valued, fostered, and recognized.
2. Teaching awards can have unintended negative consequences if recipients feel isolated and excluded from sharing their teaching expertise with others.
3. When teaching awards are used for promotion, the alignment of promotion criteria with award criteria should be observed.

Furthermore, beyond internal faculty awards different teaching awards for universities are established within certain states or within different scientific associations in Germany [http://www.uni-hamburg.de/campuscenter/lehrpreis.html], [3], [4]. Awards for excellent teaching and their publication in renowned scientific journals have an even longer tradition in scientific associations in the US [5] and promote the reputation of the awardees within the respective scientific association. Hardly any data are available whether teaching awards have an impact on further improvement of teaching and on improved student learning in particular. A 30-year-old study did not find any difference in teaching behaviours of recipients of teaching awards compared with teachers without having received a teaching award [6]. The “Ars legendi-faculty award for excellent teaching in medicine” fills an important gap in this respect.

The “Ars legendi-faculty award for excellent teaching in medicine” is award based on criteria which take qualitative commitment in individual teaching as well as achievements in general curricular and faculty development into consideration for evaluation of teaching quality. Therefore, individuals whose life time achievements in the field of teaching are honoured as well as individuals from the so called mid-level faculty whose university careers are still to be developed. In the laudations for the awardees the following special foci for their individual work were emphasized: the initiation of the use of digital media at many sites by innovative concepts (Jürgen Schäfer), the development of an interdisciplinary and practice-oriented reform curriculum (Peter Dieter), the implementation of communication training and the establishment of a centre of excellence for assessment in medicine (Jana Jünger), the improvement of the selection procedures for medical students (Wolfgang Hampe), the multi-disciplinary bracing of the areas clinical work and educational research (Tobias Raupach), and finally the establishment of an interdisciplinary centre for skills training in medical education (Stefan Beckers und Saša Sopka).

With one exemption all awardees of the “Ars legendi-faculty award for excellent teaching in medicine” are members of the Society of Medical Education (GMA) and are engaged in its committees. Most of them have completed postgraduate Master of Medical Education (MME) studies [http://mme.iml.unibe.ch], [http://www.mme-de.de/]. This leads to a cross-linking effect of their activities and to a multiplier effect for all medical faculties in Germany and beyond. These impulses are very relevant for the advancement of curricular development at the different university locations and for medical teaching and assessment methods. The decoration with the “Ars legendi-faculty award for excellent teaching in medicine” increases the attractiveness of the awardees as a member of their respective university or when applying for positions for the development of medical teaching quality at other universities. Additionally, the “Ars legendi-faculty award for excellent teaching in medicine” can be a stimulus for other academic professionals to get involved with teaching at the medical faculties in Germany. This may also lie in the MFT’s and the Donors’ Association’s interest and last, but not least, in everyone’s interest, because the students from today are the physicians who will treat us tomorrow.

Competing interests

The author declares that she has no competing interests.

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References

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