Self-Determination Theory in Academic Medicine

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Dr. Lyness

Jeffrey M. Lyness, MD, FACPsych, from the University of Rochester in Rochester, NY, joins us to discuss Self-Determination Theory.

Dr. Lyness is Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Professor of Psychiatry and Neurology in the School of Medicine and Dentistry. He also served as Chair of the 2018-2019 Group on Faculty Affairs (GFA) Steering Committee.

This is the second time Dr. Lyness has appeared on the Faculty Factory podcast. Make sure to listen to his first appearance on our podcast:

Today’s edition of the Faculty Factory Podcast is a faculty development “snippet” episode.

Dr. Lyness describes self-determination theory as a comprehensive theory of human motivation with many practical implications for faculty members and leaders.

“We want to do as much as possible to engage our colleague’s intrinsic motivations,” he said.

The three basic principles of self-determination theory:

  1. Sense of autonomy
  2. Sense of confidence
  3. Sense of relatedness

As a friendly reminder, Dr. Lyness and his colleague’s work with self-determination, Engaging students and faculty: implications of self-determination theory for teachers and leaders in academic medicine, is featured within this website’s Scholarship database.

To learn more about the theory’s implications for those in faculty, listen to the full podcast episode embedded above. Afterwards, make sure to visit SelfDeterminationTheory.org to gain an even deeper understanding for the various ways it can be applied to our everyday work in academia.