Becoming a Clinical Preceptor

The Mission of the college is to prepare globally-minded, community-focused physicians to meet the needs of rural and medically underserved populations and promote research to improve human health.

The Discipline Chairs in the Department of Clinical Affairs monitor the clinical education and experiences students encounter and meet with the core clinical faculty in their discipline annually to share student feedback and educational outcomes and to provide the clinical faculty member the opportunity to make suggestions to improve the curriculum, the rotation experience, and the preparedness of students as a whole.

In addition to the intrinsic rewards that come with medical student precepting, clinical faculty receive numerous additional benefits.  All VCOM clinical faculty receive an academic appointment with the College at an academic rank commensurate with experience, access to the VCOM electronic library, and a monetary stipend for precepting VCOM students on required clinical rotations (paid to you directly or through the medical education department of your hospital). VCOM’s Discipline Chairs also support clinical faculty through the provision of faculty development and CME opportunities.

VCOM Preceptors for core rotations are appointed as Clinical Track Faculty.  Clinical track faculty are those faculty who teach under a contractual services agreement with VCOM, rather than an employment contract, and who teach VCOM students in the clinical setting only. While these faculty provide dedicated time to the teaching of VCOM students, their primary duties are clinical practice for the clinical employer.   Instead of an employment contract, these faculty generally hold:

1. A contractual agreement for teaching services between the faculty member and VCOM; whereby, the faculty member is paid according to teaching time or services performed in the clinical setting on an annual basis (paid for services provided); or
2. A contractual agreement with a VCOM affiliated academic health center or medical group that teaches VCOM students in the clinical setting while working for the employer, where the agreement outlines that VCOM must pay the clinical entity for the faculty member’s duties and the faculty member is to be paid by the employer.

 For appointment or advancement in rank, clinical track faculty’s teaching and service accomplishments outweigh their accomplishments in research and scholarly activity; however, while research may not be a significant part of their employment, scholarly activity remains an expectation.  The appointment process for clinical track faculty considers clinical teaching performance, clinical expertise, and accomplishment in the clinical realm.  Scholarly activity for clinical track faculty often consists of case reports but may include research on clinical instruction or clinically-based research.  Service considerations may include clinical service, professional service, or service-based activities related to community health.  The current involvement and benefit for students from the College is considered rather than direct service to the College.  However, to advance to the rank of professor, clinical track faculty must demonstrate sustained outstanding performance in teaching, service, and scholarly activity.  Clinical track faculty who no longer hold active board certification are not eligible for promotion in rank through the clinical track. 

Physicians who are seeking appointment as clinical faculty may be granted a temporary initial appointment by the Associate Dean for Clinical Affairs until the application for initial appointment is complete and voted on by the APT Committee.  However, candidates should be encouraged to submit their initial appointment applications to the APT in a timely manner so that they may be considered by the APT Committee without the need for temporary appointment.  Temporary appointment is a six-month time-limited appointment and is granted upon condition of a fully executed affiliation agreement with the institution in which the physician practices or with the individual physician, and the candidate having an active and unrestricted medical license and active board certification or board eligibility. This temporary status allows the candidate to precept students while awaiting the completion of the appointment process.

All clinical track faculty will undergo appointment re-credentialing five years following their date of initial appointment and every five years thereafter.  During the re-credentialing process, preceptors must provide a current CV, proof of board certification or board eligibility, and proof of an active, unrestricted medical license.