Mike O'Callaghan Federal Medical Center

BackgroundThe role of clinician educators has expanded to encompass diverse responsibilities alongside providing competent care and engaging in scholarly activities. Faculty development (FD) programs have emerged as vital tools for equipping educators with teaching skills and career advancement opportunities. However, assessing faculty development programs’ impact on organizational culture remains challenging due to their multifaceted nature. This study explores this gap to understand how faculty development influences organizational culture.MethodsThis qualitative study used a constructivist approach to explore faculty perspectives on the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USU) Faculty Development Program’s influence on organizational culture. Forty-three faculty members participated in nine semi-structured focus groups, selected for diversity across roles and locations. Interviews were recorded, transcribed, and anonymized to ensure accuracy and participant confidentiality.Data analysisTranscripts were analyzed using thematic analysis. A multidisciplinary team independently reviewed transcripts, identified preliminary codes, and refined themes through iterative consensus building. Coding was organized using memos and grouped into themes. Using information power principles, the team determined that nine focus groups provided sufficient data richness to meet the study’s aims.ResultsThe research team identified and refined four central themes: professionalization, legitimization, the value of community, and leadership impact. The participants reported a greater sense of professionalization through enhanced teaching skills, increased awareness of educational literature, and heightened confidence in their educator roles. The faculty development program fostered a strong community, promoting collaboration, knowledge sharing, and mutual support across specialties and locations. Leadership impact was evident at individual and institutional levels, increasing confidence, mentorship, and organizational support.ConclusionsThis study provides valuable insights into the organizational impact of faculty development programs, shedding light on how such initiatives influence faculty experiences and organizational culture. Future research should explore leadership values, faculty retention, burnout prevention, and the broader value of education within academic institutions.

Nellis Family Medicine Residency, Nellis Air Force Base, NV The Corresponding Faculty Author on the manuscript is: Brock Cardon, MD; [email protected] The authors declare no conflict of interest. The opinions and assertions contained herein are those of the authors and are not to be construed as official or as reflecting the views of the US Air Force Medical Department, the US Air Force at large, or the Department of Defense.

Autonomous control in high-dimensional, continuous state spaces is a persistent and important challenge in the fields of robotics and artificial intelligence. Because of high risk and complexity, the adoption of AI for autonomous combat systems has been a long-standing difficulty. In order to address these issues, DARPA's AlphaDogfight Trials (ADT) program sought to vet the feasibility of and increase trust in AI for autonomously piloting an F-16 in simulated air-to-air combat. Our submission to ADT solves the high-dimensional, continuous control problem using a novel hierarchical deep reinforcement learning approach consisting of a high-level policy selector and a set of separately trained low-level policies specialized for excelling in specific regions of the state space. Both levels of the hierarchy are trained using off-policy, maximum entropy methods with expert knowledge integrated through reward shaping. Our approach outperformed human expert pilots and achieved a second-place rank in the ADT championship event. <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Impact Statement–</i> Significant performance milestones in reinforcement learning have been achieved in recent years, with autonomous agents demonstrating super-human performance across a wide variety of tasks. Before these algorithms can be extensively deployed in real-world defense applications, a greater level of trust must first be achieved. ADT was an important step towards developing the trust necessary to operationalize these algorithms, by demonstrating their effectiveness on a foundational yet relevant problem in a high-fidelity simulation environment. Developed for the program, our hierarchical reinforcement learning agent was designed alongside of and competed against active fighter pilots, and ultimately defeated a graduate of the United States Air Force's F-16 Weapons Instructor Course in match play.

Nellis Family Medicine Residency, Nellis AFB, Nevada The corresponding author is Jennifer Svarverud; [email protected] The authors declare no conflicts of interest. The opinions and assertions contained herein are those of the authors and are not to be construed as official or as reflecting the views of the U.S. Air Force Medical Department, the Air Force at large, or the Department of Defense.

Nellis Family Medicine Residency, Nellis Air Force Base, NV The authors declare no conflicts of interest. The opinions and assertions contained herein are those of the authors and are not to be construed as official or as reflecting the views of the US Air Force Medical Department, the Air Force at large, or the Department of Defense.