MANUSCRIPT: Qualities of an effective teacher: what do medical teachers think?
Results
The top three desirable qualities of an effective teacher in our study were knowledge of
subject, enthusiasm and communication skills. Faculty with longer teaching experienced
ranked classroom behaviour/instructional delivery higher than their less experienced
counterparts. There was no difference of perspectives based on cultural background, gender
or discipline (medicine and dentistry).Conclusion
This study found that the faculty perspectives were similar, regardless of the discipline,
gender and cultural background. Furthermore, on review of literature similar findings are
seen in studies done in allied medical and non-medical fields. These findings support
common teacher training programs for the teachers of all disciplines, rather than having
separate training programs exclusively for medical teachers. Logistically, this would make it
much easier to arrange such programs in universities or colleges with different faculties or
disciplines.
http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1472-6920-13-128.pdf
Written by Brian S McGowan, PhD
Dr. McGowan has served in leadership positions in numerous medical educational organizations and commercial supporters and is a Fellow of the Alliance (FACEhp). He founded the Outcomes Standardization Project, launched and hosted the Alliance Podcast, and most recently launched and hosts the JCEHP Emerging Best Practices in CPD podcast. In 2012 he Co-Founded ArcheMedX, Inc, a healthcare informatics and e-learning company to apply his research in practice.
