Clinical teachers working in hospitals: a New Zealand perspective.
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Date
2012-06
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Abstract
Introduction: The perceptions and actions of clinical teachers working in hospitals influence their
teaching, how their students’ learn and the clinical learning environment. The research question was,
“what are the views of clinical teachers in relation to what needs to be changed in the School of
Medicine?”
Materials and methods: A total of 80 hospital clinical teachers involved in teaching general medicine,
obstetrics and genecology, paediatrics, psychiatry, and surgery contributed to this study. The
teachers were self-selected and expressed their perceptions in response to an open-ended question,
‘If you could change three things about medical school - what would they be?’ To derive meaning
from the open-ended comments the Colaizzi phenomenological method was adapted. Additionally, six
items were constructed to allow teachers to rate their level of agreement on key areas of teaching.
Results: The clinical teachers’ commentaries indicated that the main themes were in areas of
curriculum and selection of students, teaching, service and research commitments, and professional
development. The level of agreement data supported the commentaries and showed no differences
across the clinical disciplines.Discussion: The findings of this study affirmed the need for further
cohesion between the medical programme and the hospitals in terms of directing and integrating the
curriculum. It is imperative that non-faculty clinician teachers have allocated time to teach and are
rewarded for their work. Teach the teacher initiatives need to be developed to assist clinical teachers
in meeting their teaching responsibilities in their hospital settings.
Description
Keywords
clinical environment, medical curriculum
Citation
Henning Marcus, Pinnock Ralph, Bagg Warwick, Shulruf Boaz, Hawken Susan J. Clinical teachers working in hospitals: a New Zealand perspective. South East Asia Regional Association for Medical Education. 2012 June; 6(1): 18-24.