Doctors as teachers
September 2006
Who are the medical teachers?
With their professional obligation to contribute to education and training, the majority of doctors – at all hospital grades and in general practice – are involved in the teaching of doctors or students junior to them. There is, however, no universal requirement for doctors to undertake teacher education or demonstrate teaching expertise; yet, doctors are commonly required to have relevant teaching experience and, where applicable, appropriate teaching qualifications. This requirement differs between posts and institutions. Formal and informal, recognised and unrecognised teaching roles exist in the modern healthcare setting. The informal teaching provided by doctors occurs throughout medicine and can commence immediately after graduation from medical school (eg junior doctors providing teaching to medical students) and continues throughout the medical career pathway. It is important to note that this informal teaching accounts for a significant amount of the teaching that is provided by doctors. For example, many GPs that are not formally trained and accredited as GP trainers provide undergraduate teaching as GP teachers. Teaching is also provided by non-medical trainers such as clinical educators (eg nurses and physiotherapists). Formal teaching in the medical profession is provided by several types of doctor including:
Medical academics
Medical academic staff are doctors employed by universities and medical schools to provide teaching to undergraduate medical students and postgraduate doctors. They are also required to pursue research (particularly patient-based research) and to provide specialist clinical care. Medical academics work in all hospital specialties, general practice and public health medicine. They are typically employed by universities and hold honorary contracts with NHS institutions. The majority of medical academic posts are for clinical senior lecturer, reader and professor. They teach undergraduate and postgraduate students aged 18 upwards in lectures, seminars, practical laboratory demonstrations and clinical attachments. The training for academic posts is longer than non-academic posts due to the requirement to establish competence in research, teaching and clinical care, although there is no formal training pathway to an academic career. Prospective medical academics would normally undertake a period of research during specialist training, and on completion, embark on further research before taking up a consultant-level post as a senior lecturer. [Go to note 16] New training pathways are being developed as part of the new MMC programme, with specific opportunities for training in academic medicine (see the section on MMC).
General practitioner (GP) trainers
GP trainers provide professional training during the three-year general practice vocational training course, preparing entrants for unsupervised work as GPs. Postgraduate deaneries are responsible for the selection of GP trainers in accordance with criteria which were set out by the Joint Committee on Postgraduate Training for General Practice (JCPTGP). [Go to note 17] The PMETB, which has taken over responsibility for general practice training from the JCPTGP, have adopted the criteria and agreed to continue to accept GP trainers approved by them.
Consultants
Consultants represent the most senior grade of hospital doctor. For the majority of consultants, their main responsibility is the clinical care of patients, but almost all consultants, as part of their contractual arrangements, will teach or provide some level of support and supervision to grades junior to them. In contrast to GP trainers, there is no formal accreditation of individual consultants as trainers by the PMETB, although the quality assurance of training programmes, in which consultants are the trainers, ensures that educational goals can be achieved.