Abstract: Faculty development is pivotal to the quality of standardized residency training (SRT). To achieve sustained improvement in SRT quality, it is crucial to strengthen faculty development and incentive mechanism, to enhance faculty competence in and intrinsic motivation for teaching. Since 2015, the First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University has implemented a tiered and categorized faculty development framework, which was facilitated by international cooperation, to improve faculty competence in clinical teaching. Simultaneously, promotion mechanisms such as ″minimum teaching credit″ and the ″excellence in teaching″ have been established to foster intrinsic motivation among faculty members. These efforts have yielded significant outcomes. A well-structured faculty team has been developed, with 1 181 persons trained in internationally certified training programs, 45 awarded the Associate Fellowship of AMEE, and 32 key instructors selected in the Clinical Educator Program, among whom 23 have obtained the Master degree of Health Professions Education. Faculty teaching competence have been significantly enhanced, accompanied by a paradigm shift in their educational philosophy. A total of 44 faculty members have been promoted to senior professional titles through the excellence in education mechanism, effectively stimulating enthusiasm and innovation of the early- and mid-career educators. Moreover, 12 distinctive ″specialized colleges″ have been established, and a competence-based training programs has been designed and implemented, effectively enhancing the clinical competencies of resident trainees.

Key words: Standardized residency training, Faculty development, Promotion incentives