Abstract: There is growing demand on medical teachers to exhibit not only
scientific but also educational skills. While adequate faculty development
programs are available in many countries for a fairly long time this is not the
case in Germany, where such offerings still need to be better established. This
article describes already existing programs. The behavioral and social sciences might benefit from this
increasing interest in faculty development in medical education in more than
one regard. Firstly because an increased quality in teaching leads to greater
student satisfaction. Secondly, a faculty better trained in educational matters
raises the chance of major curriculum change which might lead to an enhancement
of behavioral and social science content of medical school curricula,
consistent with its growing relevance for medicine in general. Furthermore
there is a closeness of behavioral and social sciences to educational matters
concerning their methodological and factual expertise which gives the
disciplines an excellent opportunity to improve their significance through
educational research.
Keywords: Medical education, medical didactics, medical teaching, behavioral and social sciences, faculty development