PURPOSE: This study investigated medical educators' readiness for online teaching by exploring their perceived ability and importance of online teaching competencies and identified the highest priority of their educational needs .

METHODS: In this study, 144 medical education faculty members from a university were invited to participate . The faculty online teaching readiness scale was virtually distributed at the end of the spring semester of 2020 and 38 faculty members responded for 2 weeks . The collected data were analyzed with descriptive statistics, paired t-tests, Borich Needs Assessment, and the Locus for Focus model .

RESULTS: The overall average perceived ability was 2.76, while the overall average perceived importance was 3.36 . The course design and the technical competency categories showed the highest and lowest educational needs, respectively . Five competencies were given the highest priority of educational needs .

CONCLUSION: The results revealed that the medical educators are not ready for online teaching; thus, urgent educational needs for online teaching competencies exist.