Volume 201 - Issue 4
The cost of teaching an intern in New South Wales
Author: Shyan L L Goh
Med J Aust 2014; 201 (4): 197. || doi: 10.5694/mja14.00550
Published online: 18 August 2014
Published online: 18 August 2014
One thing is clear: what is considered teaching is not agreed on
To the Editor: While Oates and colleagues1 provide an insightful introduction to intern teaching in New South Wales, I offer an alternative to their views; what is considered teaching is not agreed on, and does not necessarily translate to learning.
Informal teaching (and learning) occurs during work-based activities like ward rounds, departmental meetings, grand rounds and quality improvement activities. These are set out as learning opportunities for interns by the Australian Medical Council.2
What supervisors consider to be informal learning probably does not coincide with interns' expectations of teaching.
Junior medical officers should realise that, for them, learning from informal teaching is not about acquiring knowledge of diseases or skills, as it is for medical students. Rather, it is about acquiring knowledge of work processes and resource management — expertise not well described in medical literature. Fiona Lake, a developer of Teaching on the Run,
bases her own teaching on the idea that if something can be learnt from a textbook, it is of no help for her to teach it as well. ‘It's a complete waste of time for me to teach it!'3
Adult learning forms a significant portion of any postgraduate vocational training and can occur by both a cognitive approach, based on andragogy theory, and an apprenticeship model, in which “learning by doing” and “master as role model” are the basis.4
Perhaps the main issue is not the perception of how teaching should be done, but how learning should occur.
Competing interests
No relevant disclosures.
References
- Oates RK, Goulston KJ, Bingham CM, Dent OF. The cost of teaching an intern in New South Wales. Med J Aust 2014; 200: 100-103. 1
- Australian Medical Council, Medical Board of Australia. Guide to intern training in Australia. 2013. http://www.amc.org.au/index.php/ar/psa (accessed Jul 2014).
- McGilvray A. Teaching in practice. Med J Aust 2013; 199 (7): C1-C2. _GoBack
- Swanwick T. Informal learning in postgraduate medical education: from cognitivism to ‘culturism'. Med Educ 2005; 39: 859-865. 4