Educational expectations of professionals who teach in primary health care in Chile

ABSTRACT

With more emphasis on primary health care (PHC) both in the undergraduate and postgraduate curriculum, there is an increasing demand for high quality teaching in PHC centres. Professionals in low- and middle-income countries often have little training in teaching. Countries where family medicine is more highly developed may play an important role in supporting training the trainers in low and mid development countries. However, the needs of these PHC teachers may differ. We explored the needs of professionals who teach in PHC in Chile through an online survey and focus groups.

All the domains of competence of a clinical educator were considered to be important for training by >83% of the questionnaire respondents. Ninety percent of the respondents agreed that PHC professionals should be permitted to attend courses about teaching; 79% preferred blended learning: a combination of face-to-face training and online education.Three themes emerged in the focus groups. 1) The specific role of the teacher in PHC. 2) The challenges faced by teachers in PHC. 3) Intuitive teaching. This was an unexpected emergent theme that reflected the desire of the teachers to analyse and reflect on their teaching.

There are enthusiastic and dedicated professionals in PHC in Chile with a strong felt-need for teacher training.

KEYWORDS:

• Needs Assessment
• Continuing Education
• Primary Health Care
• Teaching
• Family Practice

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Dr Catharine George for her constant encouragement and revision of the final text, and Dr David Wheeler for his support.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Ethics Board approval

This research was given the full approval by the research ethics board of the Faculty of Medicine, P. Universidad Católica de Chile.

Additional information

Funding

This article was supported by the Newton Picarte Fund [ISCL22015011].