Twelve tips for medical educators to optimize their curricula vitae

A good curriculum vitae (CV) highlights medical educators' academic achievements and supports their professional goals. Many faculty struggle with timely updates and strategic formatting. These twelve tips will help medical educators optimize their CV to best showcase their strengths and accomplishments. The first three tips outline a process: identify a system to collect potential entries and schedule regular time for updates. Tips four and five detail how to tailor traditional CV formatting to best describe the work of medical educators. The next few tips offer concrete strategies and examples of CV entries to consider for inclusion. The remaining tips remind faculty to ask for help from colleagues, who can share a sample CV and identify overlooked activities. Our intention is to transform a task that can be burdensome into a process that seamlessly captures the breadth of our work as medical educators and allows for introspection and growth.

How community and organizational culture interact and affect senior clinical educator identity

PURPOSE

The development of Educator Identity has a significant impact on well-being, motivation, productivity, and the quality of teaching. Previous research has shown that conflicting responsibilities and a challenging work environment could negatively affect the development of Clinical Educator Identity within an organization. However, there is a lack of research that identifies the factors affecting Clinical Educator Identity Formation and provides guidance on how organizations can support its development, maintenance, and advancement.

METHODS

To examine the phenomenology of Professional Identity Development in experienced Senior Clinical Educators in Singaporean hospitals, the study utilized an exploratory qualitative approach. The data was collected from September 2021 to May 2022 through one-to-one interviews. Four investigators analyzed the data using constant comparative analysis to identify relevant themes.

RESULTS

Eleven senior educators revealed that personal, relational, and organizational factors influenced the development of Clinical Educator Identity. The relational aspect was a vital enabler, while organizational culture was a strong barrier. The study also identified several ways in which organizations can support Educator Identity development.

CONCLUSION

The study findings provide insight into how organizations can support the development of Clinical Educator Identity. The results could aid organizations in understanding the areas where they can channel resources to support Clinical Educator Identity development.

"Pet things" and "penny drops"-Factors influencing clinicians' teaching of pelvic anatomy

Pelvic anatomy is considered challenging to teach and learn, partly because its complexity can make it difficult to conceptualize. Educational researchers recognize the value of a spiraling curriculum to develop clinically orientated anatomy knowledge for health professionals, but most studies have focused on the preclinical years. It is unclear how the complexities of pelvic anatomy are taught in the clinical setting by clinician educators. Understanding pelvic anatomy teaching from the perspectives of clinician educators is important because of their critical role in supporting medical students to become knowledgeable, safe practitioners. This study sought to examine factors that influence clinician educators' teaching of pelvic anatomy to medical students during clinical placement. Using established qualitative research methods, this exploratory study used semi-structured interviews with 10 participants from obstetrics/gynecology (n = 4) and urology (n = 6) in Australia. Interviews were transcribed, and data were analyzed using a reflexive thematic analysis framework. Two overarching factors were identified as influencing clinician educators' teaching: (1) how they defined the scope of knowledge, and (2) pedagogical understanding. Scope of knowledge was underpinned by patient safety considerations and guided by past experience and student aspirations. Pedagogical understanding also relied on experience and encompassed multiple teaching strategies, including approaches informed by sensitivities surrounding pelvic anatomy. Multiple factors influence how clinician educators define the scope of pelvic anatomy knowledge required of medical students. Clinician educators' awareness of syllabus and teaching approaches can enable them to support students to attain threshold concepts such as three-dimensional spatial relationships and sociocultural sensitivities associated with pelvic anatomy.

Clinical Educators' Teaching Approaches and Attributes in Laboratory Medicine

The quality of clinical experiences for students in health care professions relies heavily on clinical educators. Hence the quest to be informed on qualities that make great clinical educators in medical laboratory professions as well as teaching methods. A 48-question survey was developed, validated, and distributed to laboratory professionals in the American Society for Clinical Pathology database. Four questions pertaining to teaching and evaluation as well as clinical educators' attributes were evaluated in the study. Responses were analyzed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences. Descriptive statistics were performed with the P value set at .05. The results revealed that communication and motivation to teach were most valued among clinical educators and empathy was the least valued attribute. Educators reported on different approaches to teaching and evaluating students. Clinical educators could benefit from training that highlights these attributes and teaching methods for great clinical experiences both for educators and students.

A Call for Formalized Training of Surgical Educators

Current training curricula for future surgeons do not prioritize teaching residents how to teach. With increased expectations but decreased opportunities to operate, developing efficient and effective educators is a pressing necessity. In this article, we discuss the need to formalize the role of the surgical educator, and future directions to implement better training paradigms for surgical educators.

Establishing the Need for Standardized Clinical Educator Training Programs for Medical Laboratory Professionals

BACKROUND

There is minimal, if any, training for clinical educators in medical laboratory professions. This leads to challenges with teaching, assessment and workload/training balance. Hence, the need for standardized clinical educator training.

METHOD

A survey was developed, validated and deployed to medical laboratory professionals. Responses were analyzed using SPSS. Responses from two open-ended questions-is clinical educators' training important and how is this training beneficial?-were analyzed using thematic analysis.

RESULTS

Most participants indicated that clinical educator training is important (99.4%). However, 72.4% received no formal training prior to training student. Themes from the importance of training include: Equip clinical educators, body of knowledge, standardize training and quality of training. Themes that emerged from the benefits of clinical educators training involve Training content, logistics, professional behavior and technical skills.

CONCLUSION

Clinical educators' training is crucial and valuable. Standardized training on pedagogy and other success strategies are warranted for successful clinical experiences.

The Development, Implementation, and Evaluation of an Acute Otitis Media Education Website

OBJECTIVE

To develop, implement, and evaluate an acute otitis media (AOM) education website for clinician-educators.

METHODS

We developed an education website following Kern's curriculum model.

RESULTS

The website contained peer-reviewed content, educational objectives, library search pages to identify evidence-based resources, and a faculty toolbox with instructional and evaluation instruments. Pediatric clinician-educators were purposefully sampled from different clinic sites to evaluate the website. Semistructured interviews explored key website components for content and usability in clinical teaching. In grounded theory tradition, investigators used the constant comparative method with qualitative analysis software to identify themes and representative quotations. Eleven faculty members (9 females and 2 males with teaching experience from 6 to 26 years) participated in the study. Identified themes were: 1) value of visual impact for learning specific topics, 2) promotion of efficiency in teaching clinical topics, 3) varying approaches for using website, and 4) faculty's self-report of knowledge and self-efficacy needs.

CONCLUSIONS

An education website may enhance the teaching of AOM, accommodate different teaching preferences, promote efficiency in teaching, and advance clinician-educator knowledge and skills. Next steps include evaluation of learners' perspectives, generalizability in varied teaching settings, and assessment of higher learning outcomes including impact on knowledge, skills, and patient outcomes.

Exploring the challenges of clinical education in nursing and strategies to improve it: A qualitative study

BACKGROUND

Clinical education is the heart of professional education in nursing. The perspective of nursing students and clinical nursing educators as the main owners of teaching-learning process are of determinants affecting clinical education process. This study was conducted to explore and to describe the clinical education problems and strategies to improve it from the perspective of nursing students and clinical nursing educators.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

The study was conducted using a descriptive qualitative method in 2017. Participants included 35 baccalaureate nursing students and 5 clinical nursing educators from nursing faculty of Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran. Participants were selected using purposeful sampling method. Data were collected through semi-structured individual interviews and used qualitative content analysis for analysis.

RESULTS

The 2 main categories, 7 subcategories, and 19 sub-sub categories extracted from interviews. The two categories were "challenges of clinical education in nursing with four subcategories: fear, insufficient readiness of student, incompetency of clinical educators, unpleasant atmosphere of clinical environment," and "strategies for improving clinical education of nursing with three subcategories: the use of nursing education models and methods, improvement of communication between faculty and practice, and holding orientation stage at the beginning of training."

CONCLUSIONS

The findings show that clinical strategies, including employing experienced clinical educators, attempting to enhance the learning environment, developing the relationship between faculty and practice, participation of clinical nurses in clinical education, paying attention to entering behavior, and holding orientation stage at the beginning of training, can improve clinical education of nursing.

Questioning skills of clinical facilitators supporting undergraduate nursing students

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

To report on a study investigating questioning skills of clinical facilitators who support the learning of undergraduate nursing students.

BACKGROUND

The ability to think critically is integral to decision-making and the provision of safe and quality patient care. Developing students' critical thinking skills is expected of those who supervise and facilitate student learning in the clinical setting. Models used to facilitate student learning in the clinical setting have changed over the years with clinicians having dual responsibility for patient care and facilitating student learning. Many of these nurses have no preparation for the educative role. This study adapted a comparative study conducted over fifteen years ago.

DESIGN

Descriptive online survey including three acute care patient scenarios involving an undergraduate nursing student. Participants were required to identify the questions they would ask the student in relation to the scenario.

METHODS

A total of 133 clinical facilitators including clinical teachers, clinical educators and preceptors from five large partner healthcare organisations of one Australian university participated.

RESULTS

The majority of questions asked were knowledge questions, the lowest category in the cognitive domain requiring only simple recall of information. Facilitators who had undertaken an education-related course/workshop or formal qualification asked significantly more questions from the higher cognitive level.

CONCLUSION

The study provides some evidence that nursing facilitators in the clinical setting ask students predominantly low-level questions. Further research is needed to identify strategies that develop the capacity of facilitators to ask higher level cognitive questions.

RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE

Clinical facilitators should undertake targeted education that focuses on how to frame questions for students that demand application, analysis, synthesis and evaluation.