• Thea C M van Roermund, Fred Tromp, Albert J J A Scherpbier, Ben J A M Bottema, and Herman J Bueving.
• Department Primary and Community Care, Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre, Nijmegen, Postbus 9101, Route number 166, 6500 HB Nijmegen, the Netherlands. T.vanroermund@elg.umcn.nl
• BMC Med Educ. 2011 Jun 28; 11: 42.

BackgroundWhen innovations are introduced in medical education, teachers often have to adapt to a new concept of what being a good teacher includes. These new concepts do not necessarily match medical teachers' own, often strong beliefs about what it means to be a good teacher.Recently, a new competency-based description of the good teacher was developed and introduced in all the Departments of Postgraduate Medical Education for Family Physicians in the Netherlands. We compared the views reflected in the new description with the views of teachers who were required to adopt the new framework.MethodsQualitative study. We interviewed teachers in two Departments of Postgraduate Medical Education for Family Physicians in the Netherlands. The transcripts of the interviews were analysed independently by two researchers, who coded and categorised relevant fragments until consensus was reached on six themes. We investigated to what extent these themes matched the new description.ResultsComparing the teachers' views with the concepts described in the new competency-based framework is like looking into two mirrors that reflect clearly dissimilar images. At least two of the themes we found are important in relation to the implementation of new educational methods: the teachers' identification and organisational culture. The latter plays an important role in the development of teachers' ideas about good teaching.ConclusionsThe main finding of this study is the key role played by the teachers' feelings regarding their professional identity and by the local teaching culture in shaping teachers' views and expectations regarding their work. This suggests that in implementing a new teaching framework and in faculty development programmes, careful attention should be paid to teachers' existing identification model and the culture that fostered it.

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