Our Work

Approach

There are many approaches to achieving better health for all. FAIMER seeks to improve the health of communities by improving health professions education.

FAIMER concentrates its efforts in developing regions in South Asia, Africa, and Latin America, and focuses on three specific strategies: faculty development, targeted research that informs health workforce policy and practice, and development of data that advances educational quality improvement decisions.

FAIMER participates in the global dialogue on improving international health professions education. We actively seek collaborations with a broad range of partners – local experts with whom we can share experiences and learn how to best respond to the needs of the communities. Through this collective exploration and problem-solving, we strive for tangible results from the activities that we believe will lead to healthier communities.

Activities

Creating Educational Opportunities for Health Professions Educators that support the exchange of educational expertise, acquisition of new methodologies in teaching and assessment, and pursuit of advanced degrees in health professions education.

Discovering Patterns and Disseminating Knowledge about the relationship between health professions education and health care, and the impact of health professions workforce and migration issues on the functioning of health care systems.

Developing Data Resources to maintain accurate, publicly-available data resources that promote an understanding of the world's health professions education systems today, and how they should look tomorrow.

Strategic Plan

Mission

The mission of FAIMER is to support the Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates (ECFMG) as it promotes international medical education through programmatic and research activities.

Vision

To create and enhance educational resources for those who teach physicians committed to improving and maintaining the health of the communities they serve.
To investigate and understand the educational experiences and migration patterns of international medical graduates and to determine their impact on population health.
To be the best source of information on international medical education.

Faculty Development for International Health Professions Educators

FAIMER seeks to create and enhance educational resources for those who teach physicians committed to improving and maintaining the health of the communities they serve. FAIMER achieves this goal by providing the skills and knowledge necessary to support medical education and by sponsoring the development of communities of local faculty members. It relies on the FAIMER Research program for support as it gathers evidence related to the efficacy of these programs and networking efforts.

The Faculty Development Program selects geographical regions for focus based on a range of criteria including need, readiness for change, and sustainability. To maximize impact, FAIMER tailors its programs to the regional situation and seeks to collaborate and partner with governmental and non-governmental organizations working in the area.

FAIMER offers fellowship programs, consultations, and institutional grants to accomplish its goals. The fellowship programs are intended to provide individual faculty members with the tools and skills to serve as educational resources in their communities. The institutional grants and consultations seek to support the creation of regional communities of Fellows as an organizational structure to carry out educational improvement in a self-sustaining manner.

Research on International Medical Education and Graduates

The goal of FAIMER's Research Program is to understand, track, and assess the educational experiences, migration patterns, and impact on population health of international medical graduates. It also takes on that portion of the ECFMG research agenda delegated to it. FAIMER seeks to conduct and provide objective, incisive analyses that lead to sound policy decisions and improvements in medical education, with the ultimate goal of enhancing the health of all people.

FAIMER designs and conducts studies focused on the full scope of medical education and medical graduates worldwide to inform the thinking and decisions of policy makers in government, academia, and private organizations. In addition to this applied use, FAIMER studies contribute to the body of health care policy and medical education research that enables decision makers to understand changes in the worldwide physician workforce and to improve its education.

The Research Program serves as a resource to FAIMER's Faculty Development Program, which seeks to gather evidence related to the efficacy of its educational programs. Among other resources, the Research Program utilizes data assembled by the FAIMER Data Resources Program. FAIMER's Research Program does not take policy positions, but is a resource for decision makers because of its reliable data and objective analysis. Based on rigorous surveys and in-depth studies and analyses of other available data, FAIMER is committed to chronicling trends in the international workforce to include the migration of physicians and drawing implications that are devoid of bias. FAIMER then disseminates this research to inform public debate.

The scope of potential research areas includes studies of health care systems and population health and their relationships to the health care workforce and the education of health care practitioners. It also includes the study of the application of information technology in medical education.

Data on International Medical Education

FAIMER strives to be the single best source of information on international medical schools and their graduates. It accomplishes this goal by creating, assembling, and maintaining high quality data repositories. In doing this, FAIMER addresses the critical need for accurate data to support policy decisions, health services research, medical education research, and credentialing needs. These activities also supply much of the information used by FAIMER's Research Program to understand the educational experiences, migration patterns, and impact of international medical graduates on population health.

FAIMER builds some of the repositories itself. It starts with information made available by ECFMG and/or other institutions and then maintains and expands it through ongoing collection of survey data. In other instances, we link datasets from different sources to address major research or policy questions.

Some of the repositories include current and historical information and are intended for use primarily by health professions educators, researchers, and organizations concerned with credentialing and licensure. Others are intended to be current and important resources for the public, healthcare consumers, and prospective medical school students. Whenever possible, given issues of cost and confidentiality, the data are freely and easily accessible.