Friday, April 08, 2011

Foundation doctors as teachers

The GMC documents Tomorrow’s Doctors and Good Medical Practice and the Foundation Programme Curriculum all outline the need for junior doctors to develop their teaching skills because doctors have a professional obligation to contribute to the training of other doctors, medical students and non-medical healthcare professionals.


According to an article in the BMJ Careers written by a F1 doctor together with a foundation school director, most foundation trainees have little formal training in teaching when they leave medical school. Many foundation trainees teach medical students at the bedside in their job and develop their own teaching style through trial and error. The authors said that these skills are not innate but can be learnt and developed.


The article discusses the teaching role of foundation trainees, the skills required to be bedside teachers including : practical and theoretical understanding of the topics to be taught, assessing each student's needs, develop good learning relationship, how to give feedback, planning the session and different styles of teaching. Ways foundation trainees can improve their teaching skills are also suggested.


It is advised that junior doctors who want to involve in teaching medical students should discuss their teaching activities with their firm lead and education supervisor to ensure support and workload planning can be arranged.


Source: Foundation doctors and bedside teaching. BMJ Careers ( free article)


See also : Teaching and Learning ‘At the Bedside’ . London Deanery. ( free article)

No comments: