No abstract

In the changing National Health Service, there is an increasing awareness of stress related problems in the medical workforce. Mentorship has been shown to help with both stress reduction and adaptation to change. There are recognised difficulties with providing mentorship for doctors but there are ways in which these can be overcome. The medical profession is now considering revalidation, re-certification, and the standards required for these. Perhaps it is also time to consider ways in which mentorship can be provided to support the medical workforce, promote ongoing development and thus improve our ability to care for patients.

Key mechanisms identified for assisting struggling trainees all involve increasing trainees' awareness of gaps in their knowledge and ways of communicating. These included timely and accurate feedback delivered sensitively, potentially from multiple sources. Once GP specialty trainees are aware of their learning needs they can then engage with further support from the local education and training board (LETB) and external specialists. Therefore, LETBs should consider the support they are able to give trainers to facilitate their work with trainees in difficulty.

Based on the findings, we assert that Multisource Feedback, Patient Satisfaction Questionnaire and Educational Supervisor's Review ratings have validity for predicting performance during training and are thus a useful tool for identifying trainees who are more likely to experience difficulty and could benefit from early additional support.

ObjectiveMajor changes in the design and delivery of clinical academic training in the United Kingdom have occurred yet there has been little exploration of the perceptions of integrated clinic academic trainees or educators. We obtained the views of a range of key stakeholders involved in clinical academic training in the East Midlands.DesignA qualitative study with inductive iterative thematic content analysis of findings from trainee surveys and facilitated focus groups.SettingThe East Midlands School of Clinical Academic Training.ParticipantsIntegrated Clinical Academic Trainees, clinical and academic educators involved in clinical academic training.Main outcome measuresThe experience, opinions and beliefs of key stakeholders about barriers and enablers in the delivery of clinical academic training.ResultsWe identified key themes many shared by both trainees and educators. These highlighted issues in the systems and process of the integrated academic pathways, career pathways, supervision and support, the assessment process and the balance between clinical and academic training.ConclusionsOur findings help inform the future development of integrated academic training programmes.