ABSTRACT
JUST OVER A DECADE AGO, THE UK GENERAL MEDICAL COUNCIL produced a guidance document called The Doctor as Teacher (GMC, 1999), beginning what could be viewed as the ‘professionalisation’ of medical education (Swanwick, 2009; Eitel et al., 2000). The Doctor as Teacher made clear the professional obligation of all doctors to contribute to the education of others on the team, noted that teaching skills can be learnt and stipulated that doctors with teaching responsibilities should take steps to ensure the development of their teaching skills. Since then, increasing attention has been paid to the development of doctors as teachers; ‘faculty development’ is becoming a shared concern of medical schools and network organisations in the National Health Service (NHS) that have been established specifically to manage and deliver postgraduate medical training (the NHS Deaneries) (Swanwick, 2009). Masters-level courses in medical education have proliferated (Pugsley et al., 2008) and professional regulators have become increasingly concerned with the need to define standards for medical trainers and training (GMC, 2010; PMETB, 2006). Within academic medical institutions, this type of development activity has been relatively common, linked to an expectation that academic staff should be versed in curriculum design and in teaching, learning and assessment strategies. The significance of the General Medical Council guidance is that this expectation has extended from the academy into clinical workplaces and into the teaching activity of clinicians.
