Teachers Promoting Expertise in Medical Education: understanding the role of the core curriculum

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between the learning outcomes expressed in the core medical curriculum at a Swedish university and how these were interpreted by, and related to, teachers’ teaching goals. Additionally, we wanted to find out how these teaching goals relate to the development of expertise, a key value in medical education. Semi‐structured interviews were conducted with teachers in anatomy and surgery, which is taught in the first and fourth years of the medical programme. To be implemented, a curriculum has to be interpreted by teachers, and this can lead to a mismatch between curriculum intentions and teacher goals. Hence, it is necessary to provide guidance as to whether the application of a core curriculum should be focusing on content only or include socio‐cultural ideas of learning encouraging an emphasis on process. The degree of teacher involvment in the design of the core curriculum seems to clarify the role of the core curriculum to teachers and students and certify its actuality and relationship to other courses.

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the staff who accepted to be interviewed. Also to our colleagues in the department of Learning, Informatics, Management and Ethics (LIME) for their support and useful comments during the process of writing. Finally a special thanks to Professor John Boulton, School of Medical Practice & Population Health at the University of Newcastle, Australia, for his helpful comments on an earlier draft of the manuscript.