Centre for Medical Education, Cardiff University School of Medicine, Cardiff, UK.
Cardiff Unit for Research and Evaluation in Medical and Dental Education (CUREMeDE), Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK.
Med Educ. 2018 Feb;52(2):216-226. doi: 10.1111/medu.13470. Epub 2017 Nov 28.
Medical educators often have prior and primary experience in other academic and clinical disciplines. Individuals seeking successful careers in the education of medical students and doctors must, at some point in their development, make a conscious transition into a new identity as a medical educator. This is a necessary move if individuals are to commit to acquiring and maintaining specialist expertise in medical education. Some achieve this transition successfully, whereas others struggle and may even lose interest and abandon the endeavour. We explored senior educators' experiences of achieving the transition into medical education and their views on what helps and what hinders the process.
In 2015 we conducted three focus groups with 15 senior medical educators. All focus group discussions were audiorecorded and transcribed verbatim. We applied transition theory to guide our deductive analysis, using Schlossberg's Four S (4S) framework to code and report participants' self-reported perceptions of those factors relating to Self, Situation, Support and Strategy that had assisted them to make a successful transition to a fully acknowledged medical educator identity. Through inductive analysis, we then identified 17 explanatory sub-themes common to all three focus groups.
Background and circumstances, individual motivation, a sense of control, organisational support, and effective networking and information-seeking behaviour were factors identified as contributing to successful transition into, and maintenance of, a strong self-identity as a medical educator.
The experiences of established medical educators and, in particular, an exploration of the factors that have facilitated their transition to an acknowledged self-identity as a medical educator could assist in supporting new educators to cope with the changes involved in developing as a medical educator.
医学教育工作者通常在其他学术和临床学科中有先前和主要的经验。那些希望在医学生和医生教育领域取得成功的人，必须在其发展的某个阶段，有意识地转变为医学教育者的新身份。如果个人要致力于获得和保持医学教育方面的专业知识，这是必要的举措。有些人成功地完成了这一转变，而另一些人则很吃力，甚至可能失去兴趣并放弃努力。我们探讨了资深教育工作者在实现向医学教育转变方面的经验，以及他们对有助于和阻碍这一过程的因素的看法。
2015 年，我们对 15 名资深医学教育工作者进行了三次焦点小组讨论。所有焦点小组讨论均进行了录音，并逐字记录。我们应用过渡理论来指导我们的演绎分析，使用 Schlossberg 的四 S（4S）框架对参与者自我报告的与帮助他们成功过渡到完全认可的医学教育者身份相关的自我、情境、支持和策略因素进行编码和报告。通过归纳分析，我们确定了所有三个焦点小组共有的 17 个解释性子主题。
背景和环境、个人动机、控制感、组织支持，以及有效的沟通和信息搜索行为，都是有助于成功过渡并保持作为医学教育者的强烈自我认同的因素。
资深医学教育工作者的经验，特别是对促进他们向公认的医学教育者自我认同转变的因素的探讨，可以帮助新教育工作者应对作为医学教育者发展所涉及的变化。
