Clinicians’ perspectives as medical teachers: A qualitative study

Abstract

Clinicians both have the responsibility to take care of the patients and to facilitate students to learn. Having different responsibilities at the same time can be stressful for medical teachers and can affect their identity as medical teachers. The aim of the study is to determine and identify approaches to the teaching of medical teachers in a university hospital. The methodology of the research is qualitative research. The educational case study method was used to develop an in-depth understanding of medical teachers’ teaching approaches. We asked the meaning of being a medical teacher, the related factors with teaching, and their best experiences of teaching by individual indepth interview. Nine individual in-depth interviews were held with participants. The most experienced medical teacher has the 27-year of experience and the junior one has 6 months of experience. Three main themes have emerged. The issues at clinical education, teachers’ perspectives on clinical education, and the roles of students and teachers at clinical education. Our study shows the residents, nurses, peer students have roles in clinical education in addition to medical teachers. One of the issues is the limitation to standardize clinical education for each student. All participants mentioned they become an academician for the greater good. The medical teachers are expecting the students to have a high level of situated interest. However, increasing students’ situated interest is up to their prior knowledge of the context, the characteristics of the learning activity, the learning environment, and the approach to the teaching of medical teachers.