According to a report by the American Association of Colleges of Nursing, nursing schools in the United States turned away nearly 50,000 qualified applicants in 2008, due in part to an insufficient number of faculty.
Inadequate clinical exposure to procedures [ 2] and an insufficient supply of faculty proficient in teaching and supervising procedures have been previously cited as barriers to procedural training [ 1, 10, 11].
Strategies generally focus on addressing insufficient physical infrastructure, increasing faculty numbers through recruitment and faculty development strategies, maximizing existing resources through the use of technology, and developing external partnerships both locally and on an international level to provide clinical teaching sites, donor support, and educational and research exchanges.
However, the shortages of teaching faculty and insufficient learning resources have hampered the traditionally intensive surgical training apprenticeships.
Such barriers include the developmental stage of the residents, insufficient QI knowledge among faculty, a lack of value placed on QI by the institution, competing curricular/clinical demands, unsupportive leadership, and the absence of a promotion pathway.
Despite these potential benefits, when ICIs occur in low or middle income countries, they have been critiqued for increasing the burden on low and middle income country (LMIC) partners, and for creating harms when students or faculty have insufficient awareness of cultural norms in the host community [ 1, 4, 15].
The perceived most severe barriers to increasing the number of graduates included poor salaries for teaching staff, insufficient number of basic scientists in the country from which to recruit faculty and insufficient teaching resources.
In all public institutions interviewed, this resulted in a burdensome faculty workload and insufficient time for student clinical mentorship.
Frequently cited barriers to effective research curricula include: lack of protected time, insufficient funds for support staff, lack of mentors and lack of research skills in faculty members [ 1, 2, 4, 7, 8, 10- 14].
For example, the barrier of "insufficient assessment methods and processes" includes faculty responses that identify the need for clearer assessment strategies so that teaching can be "evidenced and informed by meaningful assessment".
