Becoming a medical educator: motivation, socialisation and navigation

Abstract

BackgroundDespite an increasing concern about a future shortage of medical educators, little published research exists on career choices in medical education nor the impact of specific training posts in medical education (e.g. academic registrar/resident positions). Medical educators at all levels, from both medical and non-medical backgrounds, are crucial for the training of medical students, junior doctors and in continuing professional development. We explored the motivations and experiences of junior doctors considering an education career and undertaking a medical education registrar (MER) post.MethodsData were collected through semi-structured interviews with junior doctors and clinicians across Queensland Health. Framework analysis was used to identify themes in the data, based on our defined research questions and the medical education workforce issues prompting the study. We applied socio-cognitive career theory to guide our analysis and to explore the experience of junior doctors in medical education registrar posts as they enter, navigate and fulfil the role.ResultsWe identified six key themes in the data: motivation for career choice and wanting to provide better education; personal goals, expectations and the need for self-direction; the influence of role models; defining one’s identity; support networks and the need for research as a potential barrier to pursuing a career in/with education. We also identified the similarities and differences between the MERs’ experiences to develop a composite of an MER’s journey through career choice, experience in role and outcomes.ConclusionsThere is growing interest from junior doctors in pursuing education pathways in a clinical environment. They want to enhance clinical teaching in the hospitals and become specialists with an interest in education, and have no particular interest in research or academia. This has implications for the recruitment and training of the next generation of clinical educators.

Role-meanings as a critical factor in understanding doctor managers' identity work and different role identities

“…Moreover, given that centrality of clinical identity seems important to obtain legitimate authority to manage (Croft et al, 2015;Spehar et al, 2014) and has also been considered as the basis for a medical educator role (Bartle and Thistlewaite, 2014), another question to be explored is the extent to which clinical identity is compatible with managerial identity or educational identity.…”

The influence of postgraduate qualifications on educational identity formation of healthcare professionals

“…SCCT has been applied in career counselling to explain how educational career choices are made and how success can be obtained (Lent et al 2006). In education, it has been used as a conceptual framework to explore the experiences of clinician-educators as they fulfil educational roles (Kumar et al 2011;Bartle and Thistlethwaite 2014).…”

Pattern of the rational worker incentive system

“…Incentive system, which works effectively in one organization, may not be so effective for another one [1,2,[4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15]19]. And no matter what justifications analysis of the reasons of this situation gives, for the enterprise it is important to obtain significant results for the current / planned time period [3,12,17,22].…”