The RCOG’s Faculty Development Framework aims to help RCOG Fellows, Members and Trainees become better trainers and advance in their careers as educators.
This guide provides an overview of the RCOG’s Faculty Development Framework, designed to support and develop trainers and educators in obstetrics and gynaecology.
The General Medical Council (GMC) has established a UK-wide scheme to formally recognise and strengthen the role of trainers in secondary care settings, with the intention to accredit all trainers by 2016. The College has developed a Faculty Development Framework to help O&G trainers in this accreditation process.
The RCOG’s Faculty Development Framework
The Faculty Development Framework is a formal recognition scheme for trainers and educators in O&G. The four-tier framework:
- Ensures all Fellows, Members and Trainees receive O&G-specific recognition according to their level of experience
- Offers guidance on how to develop as trainers and educators by providing appropriate developmental activities
We have mapped the framework to the seven domains of the Academy of Medical Educators and to the GMC’s plan for trainer recognition.
How will the Faculty Development Framework benefit trainers and educators?
The GMC requires all educational and clinical supervisors to be recognised formally. The RCOG framework is an easy and authoritative way of recognising trainers and educators.
You can use evidence from the framework as part of a case for GMC recognition, as well as for revalidation and annual appraisal. We will be sending a certificate electronically to all Fellows, Members and Trainees over the coming months which you can use as evidence.
The framework makes our standards for trainers much clearer, and we will also use the framework to identify opportunities for developmental activities. This will lead to better trainers and educators in O&G.
The framework will also help us develop resources specific to members’ needs at each tier, helping us provide better support to O&G trainers. As we will know each member’s level within the framework, we will also be able to better communicate educational and training developments that are relevant to you.
The framework also fosters the idea of a ‘Faculty of Educators’ at an early stage, recognising trainees who are particularly interested in education and introducing all trainees to the concept of universal participation in teaching.
How will the Faculty Development Framework work?
The framework consists of four tiers that reflect the roles and responsibilities of individuals involved in training and educating O&G doctors. The framework allows members to self-assess their current status and determine how to keep current competencies up to date, and also provides guidance on how to progress further.
RCOG educational roles are the fundamental building blocks of the framework, and each role now has a faculty development rating – that is, the tier at which that role is rated, as validated by the Faculty Development Lead. Progression from one tier to the next will be part of the recruitment process to a particular RCOG role.
We will advertise existing RCOG educational roles with their tier rating when they become vacant. The Faculty Development Lead will validate the tier rating for all new RCOG educational roles.
Initially, we will identify the most likely tier for each Fellow, Member and Trainee, based on existing information, and confirm this in writing. We will record your tier against your record in our database. When an individual takes on one of the approved RCOG educational roles, we will record any change in tier accreditation in our systems.
Fellows and Members will need to provide paperwork as part of their application to be recognised by the GMC as clinical or educational supervisors. You can use evidence of your RCOG faculty tier – which we will be emailing to all Fellows, Members and Trainees over the coming months – as part of this paperwork.
The framework includes details of educational activities, both within and outside the RCOG, that will help you plan progression from one tier to the next. We will also highlight any RCOG courses that we recommend to help you progress through the framework.
Find out more
- For an overview of each tier in the framework, please visit the faculty development tiers page
- For information about how to move up through the tiers, please visit the faculty development progression page
- For a list of RCOG educational roles and their tier ratings, please visit the job roles and tier ratings page
- For answers to frequently asked questions about the Faculty Development Framework, please visit the FAQs page
Get involved
A Faculty Development email group has been established to continue the work that the now disbanded RCOG Faculty Development Committee started in 2012. The aim of the Faculty Development email group is to identify development needs of educators in our speciality, to suggest suitable development courses and programmes be they eLearning or face-to-face, and to get involved in running these.
Should you be interested in joining this group and are keen to help develop resources and/or run courses, please contact facultydevelopment@rcog.org.uk.
Contact us
If you can’t find the information you need in this section of the site, or have any questions or comments about the Faculty Development Framework, please email facultydevelopment@rcog.org.uk.