Volume 198 - Issue 10
Where is the next generation of medical educators?
Authors: Geoffrey J McColl, Jill E Thistlethwaite, Tim Wilkinson, Lambert W T Schuwirth and Wendy C Y Hu
Med J Aust 2013; 198 (10): 535. || doi: 10.5694/mja13.10351
Published online: 3 June 2013
Published online: 3 June 2013
In reply: We thank Hart and Pearce for supporting the views raised in our editorial, noting the unmet demand for medical education expertise.
We also thank Kandiah for his response, and agree that medical graduates should be “clinically competent, reliable, keen to learn and show compassion to patients and colleagues”. We believe this outcome is best achieved by strong collaborations among “skilled clinicians and excellent mentors” ...
In reply: We thank Hart and Pearce for supporting the views raised in our editorial, noting the unmet demand for medical education expertise.
We also thank Kandiah for his response, and agree that medical graduates should be “clinically competent, reliable, keen to learn and show compassion to patients and colleagues”. We believe this outcome is best achieved by strong collaborations among “skilled clinicians and excellent mentors” and medical educators, many of whom are also practising clinicians. Clinicians provide critical input to ensure the validity and authenticity of what is taught and assessed, and are an essential element of the “triad” of patient, student and clinician in clinical learning.1 Collaboration between clinicians and medical educators is not difficult because they are often embodied within the same people.
The question of proof in medical education is the subject of much activity and, as Kandiah notes, there is an increasing output of scholarship in medical education. Moreover, the quality and rigour of this output is increasing, with a growing evidence base for medical educational practice.2 Generating new knowledge and applying it to medical student education is a key goal of an increasingly professionalised medical education community.
Medical education research is confounded by multiple factors, not the least being the powerful and uncontrolled effects of the diverse clinical environments in which students learn and practise as graduates.3 These make causal pathways difficult to unpick. While researching the effect of medical educators may be desirable, we believe that researching the effects of medical education interventions is more fruitful. For example, if one were to substitute medical educators with radiologists, how could one “prove” that radiologists have improved the health of the Australian population? Yet we are convinced that radiology does play an important role, based on multiple individual studies showing contributory evidence for this claim.
We welcome opportunities to work with health services and the community to examine the long-term performance of our students and their impact on the health system. Collaboratively defining and answering specific questions is likely to be much more productive than making artificial distinctions between clinicians and educators.
Competing interests
No relevant disclosures.
References
- Dornan T, Boshuizen H, King N, Scherpbier A. Experience-based learning: a model linking the processes and outcomes of medical students’ workplace learning. Med Educ 2007; 41: 84-91. 0_CHDHBGIJ
- Best Evidence Medical Education (BEME) Collaboration. Published reviews. http://www.bemecollaboration.org/Published+Reviews/ (accessed May 2013).
- Gruppen LD. Is medical education research ‘hard’ or ‘soft’ research? Adv Health Sci Educ Theory Pract 2008; 13: 1-2. 0_i1142872