Background

Project MODEL Session Content

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), Veterans Health Administration (VHA), has a mission to educate health professionals for VHA and for the nation. VHA hospitalists, who are doctors working mainly in the hospital, play a key role in teaching new physicians.

Many hospitalists in large cities work closely with nearby universities, which helps them grow as educators and improve their teaching skills. In contrast, many rural VHA health care systems do not have strong or formal ties to a university. This means rural hospitalists often have the same teaching responsibilities but fewer tools, mentors, or resources to support their teaching.

Even when rural facilities have academic partners, hospitalists there may feel professionally isolated. Travel distance, time away from work, and the cost of in-person meetings make it harder for them to attend traditional education conferences or workshops. Over time, this isolation can lower their confidence and make them feel less effective as clinician educators.

Despite these challenges, hospitalists across VHA have expressed a strong desire to improve their teaching and to receive more support for their educational roles. To respond to this need, in 2023 the VHA Office of Rural Health (ORH) launched the Maximizing Ongoing Development in Educational Leadership (MODEL) for VHA Hospitalists Enterprise-Wide Initiative (EWI).

Project MODEL is a structured, interactive, discussion-based professional and faculty development series. The program brings together inpatient health care providers at VHA medical centers to build their skills and confidence as clinician educators, with a special focus on including rural hospitalists.

Goals and Objectives

Project MODEL has clear goals that guide the program’s design and activities.

• Mission: Improve the quality and amount of clinical teaching provided by VHA hospitalists, and strengthen VHA’s role as a leader in health professions clinical education.
• Vision: Collect, develop, and share best practices in inpatient teaching from the perspective of VHA medicine, while creating a supportive community of VHA educators across rural and nonrural settings.

Through these goals, Project MODEL aims to help hospitalists grow as teachers, feel more connected to a community of peers, and deliver high-quality education to the next generation of clinicians who care for Veterans.

Methodology

Participation in Project MODEL is voluntary. VHA hospitalist sections learn about the program through email lists, professional talks, and word-of-mouth from colleagues. When a VHA health care system is interested in joining, local medical education leaders complete an intake interview to review how the program works and what it offers.

Sites that choose to participate complete five one-hour, live, online faculty development sessions. These sessions focus on high-yield teaching topics that VHA hospitalists have identified as important for their day-to-day work. Each session is designed to be practical, interactive, and directly useful in the inpatient setting.

Hospitalists are the primary audience, but local medical education leaders are encouraged to invite other inpatient providers who care for Veterans on hospital wards, such as advanced practice providers or other physicians, if they feel it is appropriate. This flexibility allows the program to benefit a broader inpatient care team.

Sessions are delivered in cohorts that intentionally pair rural and nonrural VHA hospitalist sections. This pairing helps build a wider community of practice, supports peer learning, and reduces feelings of isolation among rural providers. Sessions are scheduled to make attendance as convenient as possible across time zones and busy clinical schedules.

All sessions take place in real time over Microsoft Teams. Participating sites therefore need access to virtual meeting technology, but they do not need to travel. Participants are asked to complete brief surveys before and after the series, so the program can measure changes in confidence, behaviors, and teaching skills.

In addition to surveys, Project MODEL uses qualitative interviews with stakeholders and participants to better understand how the program is working, gather feedback, and identify opportunities to improve the curriculum and support for hospitalist educators.

Impact on Rural Veteran Health

Rural VHA providers are often deeply committed to teaching, but they face unique challenges that can make clinical education difficult. Many rural and low-complexity VHA facilities report staffing shortages and rely on intermittent or locum tenens providers. This can affect both the stability of the teaching faculty and the time available for education.

Teaching can either reduce or increase stress for rural providers, depending on the support they receive. When educators are backed by strong training, peer support, and clear expectations, teaching can improve professional satisfaction. Without support, it can add pressure and contribute to burnout.

Project MODEL has already reached hundreds of VA providers across the country. Participants report increased confidence in their educator roles, better understanding of their responsibilities as clinician educators, and more frequent use of evidence-based teaching practices.

By building a community of practice and fostering peer support, the program has the potential to reduce burnout among rural providers. Over time, this may help improve recruitment, job satisfaction, and retention of clinicians in rural VHA facilities, which directly benefits the Veterans who rely on these hospitals for inpatient care.

Project MODEL Session Content

Project MODEL’s curriculum focuses on practical topics that hospitalist educators can apply immediately in their daily work. The sessions are interactive and discussion-based, giving providers the chance to practice skills, share real-world challenges, and learn from one another.

Session topics may include ways to give effective feedback, strategies for bedside teaching on busy inpatient services, methods for setting clear expectations with trainees, and approaches to creating safe learning environments for all team members. Content is designed to support both new and experienced educators.

By pairing rural and nonrural sites in each cohort, the program encourages participants to exchange ideas about teaching in different settings and to adapt best practices to local needs. This shared learning helps spread strong teaching practices across the VHA system.

Key Takeaways

The MODEL Enterprise-Wide Initiative has been well received across VHA hospital medicine. More than 50 individual sites have participated at least once, and new sites continue to enroll. This widespread interest shows that hospitalists value structured support for their teaching roles.

The program delivers a concise, high-yield curriculum that is relevant to hospitalists with different levels of experience, practice styles, and geographic locations. Early survey data show that participants feel more confident in many key teaching skills after the series and intend to use more evidence-based, high-quality teaching behaviors in their work.

The MODEL curriculum has also proven flexible and inclusive. Although hospitalists are the main focus, participation from other professions and disciplines has been strong, highlighting the broad usefulness of the content across inpatient teams.

Looking ahead, the program plans to continue recruiting both rural and nonrural sites and to develop a “MODEL 2.0” curriculum that builds on the first series and introduces new topics. The team also encourages sites to explore peer observation of teaching and ongoing conversations about medical education best practices, so that learning continues beyond the formal sessions.

Participants have shared very positive feedback, describing the series as practical, accessible for busy hospitalists, and valuable for educators at all levels of experience. Many have called Project MODEL one of the best education series they have attended.

Download the Printable PDF for Healthcare Providers and Researchers.

References

• Office of Academic Affiliations. Our Impact. U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
• Beasley BW, McBride J, McDonald FS. Hospitalist involvement in internal medicine residencies. Journal of Hospital Medicine. 2009.
• VHA Hospital Medicine Survey. Healthcare Analysis and Information Group (HAIG). 2023.
• Dowling S, Last J, Finnigan H, Cullen W. Continuing education for general practitioners working in rural practice: a review of the literature. Education for Primary Care. 2018.
• Alexandraki I, Kern A, Beck Dallaghan GL, Baker R, Seegmiller J. Motivators and barriers for rural community preceptors in teaching: A qualitative study. Medical Education. 2024.
• Saint S, Fowler KE, Krein SL, Flanders SA, Bodnar TW, Young E, Moseley RH. An academic hospitalist model to improve healthcare worker communication and learner education: results from a quasi-experimental study at a Veterans Affairs medical center. Journal of Hospital Medicine. 2013.
• Caputo L et al. Teaching the Teacher: Novel Faculty Development for VA Hospitalists. Federal Practitioner. 2023.
• Gutierrez J, Moeckli J, McAdams N, Kaboli PJ. Perceptions of telehospitalist services to address staffing needs in rural and low complexity hospitals in the Veterans Health Administration. Journal of Rural Health. 2019.
• Casey MM, Hung P, Moscovice I, Prasad S. The use of hospitalists by small rural hospitals: results of a national survey. Medical Care Research and Review. 2014.

Contact

• Project Contacts: Laura Caputo, MD, Project Manager; and Heather King, Research Investigator, Durham VA Medical Center, Durham, NC. Laura.Caputo@va.gov / Heather.King2@va.gov
• Funding Acknowledgement: Department of Veterans Affairs, Veterans Health Administration, Office of Rural Health, NOMAD #PRFY-00558.
• Suggested Citation: Caputo, Laura. (2025). MODEL: Maximizing Ongoing Development in Educational Leadership. Department of Veterans Affairs, Veterans Health Administration. Washington, DC: Office of Rural Health.

Rural Health - Navigation

• Office of Rural Health Home page:
  https://www.ruralhealth.va.gov/index.asp
• Enterprise-Wide Initiatives (EWI) page:
  https://www.ruralhealth.va.gov/Enterprise-Wide-Initiatives-EWI.asp
• Veterans Rural Health Resource Centers (VRHRC) page:
  https://www.ruralhealth.va.gov/Veterans-Rural-Health-Resource-Center-VRHRC.asp