Maturing through awareness: An exploratory study into the development of educational competencies, identity, and mission of medical educators

Abstract

Purpose

Faculty development in learning-centred medical education aims to help faculty mature into facilitators of student learning, but it is often ineffective. It is unclear how to support educators’ maturation sustainably. We explored how and why medical educators working in learning-centred education, more commonly referred to as student-centred education, mature over time.

Methods

We performed a qualitative follow-up study and interviewed 21 senior physician-educators at two times, ten years apart. A hierarchical model, distinguishing four educator phenotypes, was employed to deductively examine educators’ awareness of the workplace context, their educational competencies, identity, and ‘mission,’ i.e. their source of personal inspiration. Those educators who grew in awareness, as measured by advancing in educator phenotype, were re-interviewed to inductively explore factors they perceived to have guided their maturation.

Results

A minority of the medical educators grew in awareness of their educational qualities over the 10-year study period. Regression in awareness did not occur. Maturation as an educator was perceived to be linked to maturation as a physician and to engaging in primarily informal learning opportunities.

Conclusions

Maturation of medical educators can take place, but is not guaranteed, and appears to proceed through a growth in awareness of, successively, educational competencies, identity, and mission. At all stages, maturation is motivated by the task, identity, and mission as a physician.

Keywords:

• Staff development
• medical education research
• roles of teacher
• change
• undergraduate

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank the medical educators who took part in this study.

Disclosure statement

The authors report no declarations of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of this article.

Glossary Terms

Mission (educational): Source of personal inspiration which gives meaning to a teacher’s professional existence by contributing to others within a larger context.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.

Notes on contributors

Marleen W. Ottenhoff-de Jonge

Marleen W. Ottenhoff-de Jonge, MD, is an Associate Professor in General Practice and a PhD Candidate at Leiden University Medical Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands.

Iris van der Hoeven

Iris van der Hoeven, MD, is a former Medical Student at Leiden University Medical Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands.

Neil Gesundheit

Neil Gesundheit, MD, PhD, is the Senior Associate Dean for Medical Education, George DeForest Barnett Founders Professor of Medicine and Professor (Teaching) of Medicine (Endocrinology), Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, United States.

Anneke W. M. Kramer

Anneke W. M. Kramer, MD, PhD, is an Emeritus Professor in General Practice and former head of the Postgraduate Training in General Practice at Leiden University Medical Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands.

Roeland M. van der Rijst

Roeland van der Rijst, PhD, is Full Professor of Educational Sciences at the ICLON Leiden University Graduate School of Teaching, Leiden, The Netherlands.