Training medical educators to teach: bridging the gap between perception and reality

Teaching is a core expectation of physicians in academic hospitals and academic medical centers, but best practices for training physicians to teach have not been established. There is significant variability in how physicians are trained to teach medical students and residents across the world, and between Israeli hospitals. In an article published earlier this year in the Israel Journal of Health Policy Research, Nothman and colleagues describe a survey of 245 Israeli physicians in departments of internal medicine, pediatrics, and obstetrics and gynecology, at four different faculties of medicine across Israel. The majority of Israeli physicians responding to this survey reported receiving minimal training to teach, with only 35% receiving any training focused on medical education skills, most (55%) receiving training of only 1–2 days duration. In addition, the physicians surveyed perceived their training as inadequate and not aligned with their self-perceived educational needs. Furthermore, the respondents felt strongly that “compensation and appreciation” for medical education was less than for those involved in research. Despite the general lack of training in teaching skills and the perception that teaching physicians are less valued than researchers, survey respondents rated themselves as highly confident in most domains of medical education. In this context, this commentary reviews the disconnect between the general perception that all physicians can and should engage in teaching in the clinical setting with the well-described observation that competence in medical education requires dedicated and longitudinal training. Leveraging best practices in curriculum design by aligning educational interventions for teaching physicians with their self-perceived needs is discussed, and models for dedicated faculty development strategies for teaching medical education skills to physicians are reviewed. Finally, the importance of and potential strategies for assessing teaching physicians’ effectiveness in Israel and elsewhere are considered as a means to address these physicians’ perception that they are not as valued as researchers. Understanding teaching physicians’ perspectives on and motivations for training medical students and residents is critical for supporting the frontline teaching faculty who educate future healthcare providers at the bedside in medical schools, hospitals, and academic medical centers in Israel and beyond.