The Importance of Becoming a Medical Educator: The Case for Teaching Doctors to be Teachers

It is often assumed that healthcare professionals are effective medical educators simply because they have completed the required courses leading to their degrees. As such, they are rarely provided with the ongoing support needed to become consistently effective medical teachers.Developing effective medical teachers is a complex task that can best be achieved by providing teacher candidates with the understanding and tools they need to become effective. Although a thorough knowledge of medicine is necessary to become an excellent medical educator, earning a medical degree alone is not enough. A variety of factors go into a teacher’s effectiveness in any educational setting, and most teachers need guidance and practice in order to become effective.Among the many topics addressed in this text are teaching/learning; instructional objectives; teacher assessment; adult learning theory; motivation of adult learners; the red flags of ineffective teaching; and the difference between equality and equity. This book will serve to educate doctors on how to better teach their students and current colleagues, and, most importantly, how to better educate their patients.