Purpose
The Clinician Educator Milestones (CEMs) aim to develop relevant milestones that track teaching and educational leadership activities while creating a scaffold for improvement. The CEMs are recommended for self-assessment and identification of growth areas. While the CEMs have been out since 2020, they have not yet been widely adopted nor have universal strategies for implementation been developed. Additionally, the CEMs were targeted toward clinician educators, yet they are useful for all medical educators (MEs) as a self-assessment and development guide.

Methods
Answering the question, “How do medical educators self-assess their teaching and educational leadership activities using the CEMs?” a CEM survey was created and pilot tested. This survey contained the CEMs and collected quantitative and qualitative data about their use; demographics were collected including degree, clinical experience, teaching experience, educational title, clinical department, and formal educational training. This survey was distributed to faculty at each institution and closed after 6 weeks.

Results
We collected 483 responses from physician and scientist educators, with over 900 initiating the survey, from 9 institutions. The CEMs were rated on a 1-5 scale. The highest rated milestone was “Commitment to Professional Competencies” (4.3), the lowest rated was “Medical Education Scholarship” (2.95). Of the respondents, 71% were not aware of the CEMs prior to participation in this survey. The results included variability across individual ratings, showing that participants completed an honest self-assessment. Comments highlighted the usefulness of participating in the survey. There were areas of significant differences between faculty rank on certain milestones.

Conclusions
This study addresses the current landscape of self-assessment among MEs using the CEMs, aiming to understand how MEs self-assess their performance. By engaging multiple institutions and incorporating demographic questions, the results provide insights to inform faculty development initiatives and identify areas for improvement within individual institutions.