Blogger:
Stephen Doyle, DO, MBA
Twitter handle @stevedoyle85
About the blogger:
Stephen Doyle is a Pulmonary & Critical Care Medicine Fellow at Ohio State University. His research interests include medical education and lung transplant. He is particularly interested in evaluating the correlation of mentoring during training and career success in medicine.
Citation:
Ahn, J., Martin, S. K., Farnan, J. M., & Fromme, H. (2017, July 3). The graduate medical education scholars track. Academic Medicine. Doi:10.1097/acm.0000000000001815
Article:
The graduate medical education scholars track: Developing residents as clinician–educators during clinical training via a longitudinal, multimodal, and multidisciplinary track
Why this article:
Residents and fellows frequently enter training with an interest in becoming a “clinician-educator.” However, they often aren’t familiar with the difference between a clinician-educator and a clinician-teacher, or how to develop this into a successful career. Clinician-educators encompass clinical teaching, applying educational theory to practice, fostering educational leadership/expertise, and engaging in educational scholarship. This study developed a two-year GME Scholars Track (GMEST) for residents at an academic medical center with a focus on medical education scholarship. The curriculum consisted of three distinct teaching elements:
- Live interactive programing: quarterly meetings, journal club, observed teaching activity with direct feedback
- Asynchronous instruction and discussion: interactive Webinar series, online group discussions
- Overarching multimodal mentorship in medical education: mentorship from faculty and peers related to scholarly project, medical education, and track/career direction
Residents had minimal exposure to scholarly work in medical education prior to enrollment in the program. Not surprisingly, a vast majority of residents felt the program would positively influence their ability to work in medical education and was important to their development as future clinician-educators at the conclusion of the GMEST. At initial follow up, 64% of participants in the initial cohort produced scholarly activity (poster, letter to the editor, manuscript) in medical education.
Clinician-educators are becoming an increasingly popular career choice; however, specific tracks designed to develop a successful career in academic medicine are currently lacking. For typical promotion and advancement at academic centers, a physician needs to obtain grants and produce manuscripts. This route becomes more difficult for a clinician-educator, who spends a large portion of his or her time providing care for patients, developing curriculum, and implementing educational theory to better educate the next generation of physicians. While most people consider these tasks scholarly activity, it can be difficult to find avenues for peer-review publications. It is important for programs like the GMEST to be implemented to teach aspiring clinician-educators (trainees and faculty) how to become clinician-educators and how to create scholarly works in medical education to allow the field to continue to grow.
