The Fellowship

The Southern Africa-FAIMER Regional Institute (SAFRI) offers a fellowship program that can be completed in 17 months, with an option to continue working with a SAFRI faculty mentor on an individual scholarship project for an additional seven months. The core fellowship program is comprised of three residential sessions with two distance learning sessions between them. The residential sessions are held in South Africa. The first two are held one year apart. The third (final) residential session occurs approximately four months after the second residential session and includes attendance at the annual conference of the South Africa Association of Health Educationalists (SAAHE).

Curriculum topics include student assessment, good teaching practices, program evaluation, distance learning, leadership, change management, project design and management, conflict management, educational research and scholarship, and qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis.

SAFRI’s distance learning sessions focus on the mentoring of Fellows, network building, and the exchange of ideas through participation in an internet discussion group. Fellows are also required to design and implement a faculty development workshop at their home institution during the second distance learning session as part of their professional portfolio.

Over the course of the program, each Fellow designs and implements an education innovation project at his or her home institution. Project summaries and results are shared by Fellows in poster presentations during the second residential session. Each Fellow also prepares an abstract of the project for submission to the SAAHE conference.

Fellows receive full funding for accommodations, meals, and program costs. Travel costs to and from the residential sessions are not included. There are no registration or course fees; however, costs incurred in carrying out the innovation project are the responsibility of the Fellow. Fellows should have access to a Wi-Fi capable laptop computer for use during residential sessions.

Education Innovation Project

A major goal of the fellowship program is the design and implementation of an education innovation project, proposed by Fellows in their initial application to the Institute, and implemented during the fellowship at their home institution. Projects with the potential to improve the health of the community, region, or country of the applicant’s institution are given higher priority in the fellowship selection process.

To encourage the development of knowledge and skills in health professions education scholarship (research, evaluation, and publishing), Fellows prepare a poster and an abstract (for submission to the SAAHE conference) based on the first year of project implementation. Fellows are encouraged and supported to continue developing the scholarly outputs of their SAFRI projects beyond the core 17-month fellowship program with the goal of producing an academic publication at the end of two years.

Project proposals typically involve, but are not limited to, one or more of the following areas: student assessment, educational application of information technology, health systems integration, community-based health professions education, problem-based learning, clinical skills development, professionalism and ethics, critical thinking, program evaluation, faculty development, curriculum revision and/or integration, student affairs, interactive teaching methods, development of medical education units, and distance learning.

Fellows

Building regional communities of practice of health professions educators is another major goal of the SAFRI program. During the course of the fellowship, Fellows interact with members of their own class, as well as with Fellows from the preceding and subsequent classes. Community building is fostered by a period of overlap in the residential sessions for first- and second-year participants, providing opportunities for interaction among Fellows who are beginning their education innovation projects and those who have worked on their projects for a year. On-line discussion during the distance learning sessions provides an additional forum for group work on research and projects, and for the sharing of resources and experience among current Fellows and Institute graduates. Fellows are encouraged to continue their participation in the larger FAIMER community after completion of the fellowship.

SAFRI welcomed its first class of Fellows in 2008. To date, 47 individuals from 20 institutions in seven African countries have participated in the fellowship.

The global FAIMER community includes more than 500 Fellows from more than 200 schools in more than 40 countries. To see a sortable list of FAIMER Fellows, their institutions, countries, fellowship year, and project, please visit the FAIMER website Fellows page.

Program Faculty

SAFRI is supported by regional FAIMER faculty, who are past FAIMER Institute and SAFRI Fellows, as well as by international experts in health professions education. For more information about the faculty, visit the Faculty page.

Administration

SAFRI is organized and administered by the Council of the SAFRI Association, comprised of former FAIMER Institute Fellows from Southern Africa, former SAFRI Fellows who now serve as SAFRI faculty, and a FAIMER representative. The fellowship program is implemented under the leadership of Directors Juanita Bezuidenhout and Vanessa Burch. Administrative support is provided by Dot Bransby.

Schedule

The schedule for the 2011 fellowship cycle is:

June 2010	Application opens
October 2010	Application deadline
November 2010	Review of applications
December 2010	Announcement of awards
March 2011	Session 1 (residential session)
April 2011 – February 2012	Session 2 (distance learning session)
March 2012	Session 3 (residential session)
April 2012 – June 2012	Session 4 (distance learning session)
July 2012	Session 5 and SAAHE Conference
August 2012 – February 2013	Optional Advanced Scholarship component

The SAFRI Regional Institute is sponsored by the Foundation for Advancement of International Medical Education and Research (FAIMER), which is a nonprofit foundation of the Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates (ECFMG).  Fellows are asked to pay for their travel to and from residential sessions.

To apply to SAFRI, please visit the FAIMER Fellowships Application Page.

To request more information on the program via e-mail, please click here.