Medical teacher
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Clinical educators are expected to prepare students to be competent beginning practitioners, ready to enter the workforce and meet the demands of competent practice. As part of ensuring the quality of clinical education, universities that provide these programs need to be involved in the education and support of clinical educators. In this paper we examine the preparation and professional development of clinical educators based on research into the experiences of being a clinical educator (McAllister 2001). ⋯ Becoming and being a clinical educator is a developmental process, mirroring in some ways the developmental process clinical educators strive to facilitate for their students. This journey of growth and development as a clinical educator requires active learning approaches coupled with reflection on one's practice as a clinical educator. The model can be used to educate clinical educators in speech pathology and other professions, given the commonalities in clinical educators' roles across professions. Interactive and reflective strategies are presented in the paper for the development and support of clinical educators across the continuum from novice to professional artist.
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Does the tired oppositional debate between student-centredness and teacher-centredness leave the patient stranded, where the patient is surely the focus of a medical education? How might an authentic patient-centred practice be shaped, informed and nourished theoretically? We describe an intellectual landscape of critical, interdisciplinary inquiry that, so far, many medical educators have not inhabited. For example, texts written to inform medical education rarely examine intellectual premises and ideological implications. We offer a number of theoretical frameworks that can inform critical practice, asking 'why do we do it this way?'; 'what are the alternatives?'; and 'how do we justify our approaches intellectually?' We conclude that medical education needs to take stock of its intellectual resources.
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This guide reviews what is known about educational and clinical supervision practice through a literature review and a questionnaire survey. It identifies the need for a definition and for explicit guidelines on supervision. There is strong evidence that, whilst supervision is considered to be both important and effective, practice is highly variable. ⋯ Specific aspects include continuity over time in the supervisory relationship, that the supervisees control the product of supervision (there is some suggestion that supervision is only effective when this is the case) and that there is some reflection by both participants. The relationship is partly influenced by the supervisor's commitment to teaching as well as both the attitudes and commitment of supervisor and trainee; (7) Training for supervisors needs to include some of the following: understanding teaching; assessment; counselling skills; appraisal; feedback; careers advice; interpersonal skills. Supervisors (and trainees) need to understand that: (1) helpful supervisory behaviours include giving direct guidance on clinical work, linking theory and practice, engaging in joint problem-solving and offering feedback, reassurance and providing role models; (2) ineffective supervisory behaviours include rigidity; low empathy; failure to offer support; failure to follow supervisees' concerns; not teaching; being indirect and intolerant and emphasizing evaluation and negative aspects; (3) in addition to supervisory skills, effective supervisors need to have good interpersonal skills, good teaching skills and be clinically competent and knowledgeable.
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The relationship between spirituality and health is receiving increased attention; consequently medical schools have begun asking how and in what manner these issues should be addressed in medical education. Unfortunately, student beliefs concerning spirituality and health have not been adequately assessed. This study examined medical student beliefs regarding the relationship between spirituality and health and the level of instruction spirituality should receive in the curriculum. ⋯ Students believed that patients could benefit from spiritual practices more than they could for their own health conditions. Most students endorsed a lecture or one- to two-week seminar with instruction in the first or second year of medical school. Student spirituality was the only predictor of required level of instruction in the medical school curriculum.