ABSTRACT
How can the field of adult education inform health professions education (HPE)? This article discusses the need for expanding HPE to incorporate adult learning, adult teaching, and adult development. Health professions education is a broad term with two different meanings. First, the term refers to prelicensure programs that prepare individuals to function as professionals in one of the health professions, such as medicine or nursing. Second, it refers to master’s degree, doctoral degree, or certificate programs that prepare professionals who are already licensed (e.g., physicians or nurses) to be educators. In this article, we refer to HPE as the preparation of health professionals to be educators.
