Doctors as teachers
September 2006
Recommendations
Improving the delivery of teaching in medicine requires a multi-dimensional approach across the profession at the level of individual doctors, healthcare and academic institutions, training and regulatory bodies, and relevant governmental departments.
Individual doctors
1. All doctors should recognise their professional obligation to teach. Doctors should fulfil the educational obligations set out by the GMC and take responsibility for developing appropriate teaching skills. Through the agreement of job plans, doctors should require employers to provide the necessary time and support to adequately fulfil these obligations.
2. Medical teachers should develop teaching skills that reflect their individual level of teaching involvement, and these skills should be regularly consolidated and updated. All doctors should have basic teaching skills and should be able to demonstrate relevant teaching expertise. Medical academics with formal teaching responsibilities and consultants and general practitioners with leadership roles in education should be encouraged and allowed the opportunity to attain higher educational qualifications (eg Masters Degree in Medical Education). Doctors should attend teacher education courses on a regular basis to ensure they remain up-to-date with developments in education.
Professional and regulatory bodies
3. Teaching should be recognised as a core professional activity equivalent to research and patient care. The contribution that doctors make to teaching should be fully acknowledged and comprehensively rewarded so that the status of teaching becomes comparable to that of clinical work and research. Opportunities and incentives should be available to promote teaching as a rewarding, valued and respected professional activity. Doctors should be encouraged to develop and update their teaching skills as part of CPD. The recommendations set out by the joint sub-committee of the UKCRC and MMC on the training of researchers and educators in the medical profession should be fully recognised and implemented.[Go to note 24]
4. Opportunities to acquire and develop teaching skills should be provided at all levels of the medical profession through a structured training programme that begins at undergraduate level and continues through to senior posts. As all doctors have a professional obligation to teach, there should be a defined route by which medical students and doctors can acquire, maintain and update their teaching skills so that teacher education becomes embedded at every stage of the medical career pathway. This should provide access to suitable and accredited teacher education courses that are appropriately regulated and resourced.
5. The provision of teacher education should be a core component of undergraduate and postgraduate medical curricula. Teacher education should be encouraged during undergraduate training and the development of teaching skills should be introduced as a formal competency that is taught and assessed during postgraduate training.
6. Doctors should be subject to regular reviews of their teaching responsibilities and the quality of teaching they provide. The teaching responsibilities of all doctors should be reviewed annually to ensure they are adequately fulfilling their educational obligations. A set of performance measures should be developed that allow evaluation of the quality of teaching, and the results of the performance evaluation should be included in the annual appraisal.
Funding bodies
7. Medical education funding streams should be more transparent. The funding provided to higher education institutions and healthcare organisations for medical education should occur via a framework that clearly sets out how funds are allocated and how they should be utilised. The funding allocated to medical education should be used for medical education only and not to subsidise other professional activities such as research. All funding allocations should be monitored and accounted for.
Healthcare and academic institutions
8. Teaching should be made a top priority by all organisations with strategic and operational responsibility for the education, career progression and development of doctors. Academic institutions and healthcare organisations (including all NHS bodies) should ensure they provide adequate funding, support and resources for effective teaching to occur. Through the development and agreement of job plans, doctors should be provided with sufficient support and protected time to fulfil their teaching responsibilities.
9. Teaching posts with significant, formal educational responsibilities should be recruited primarily on the basis of teaching expertise. In the recruitment of formal teaching posts, institutions should select candidates on the basis of educational expertise.
10. The educational contribution of doctors should be adequately rewarded. Doctors should be rewarded on the basis of their individual involvement in teaching, their teaching experience and in recognition of relevant teaching qualifications. Rewards should include financial compensation and opportunities for career progression.
11. Inclusive environments should be provided that lead to effective teaching and learning. Academic and healthcare institutions should provide suitable teaching and learning environments that ensure quality of teaching across the range of educational opportunities.
12. Doctors who have a particular interest and aptitude for teaching, or who are seen as role models, should be encouraged to develop their skills further. Doctors who have excellent teaching skills should be encouraged to act as role models to colleagues, juniors and medical students.
13. There should be further research into teaching in the medical profession. Research should be undertaken into the funding for medical education and teaching, the organisational management of teacher education, the number of doctors who undertake training in teaching skills, how medical teachers develop, the attitudes towards teaching and teacher education in the medical profession and the impact of teacher education.