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Transition experiences of UK junior doctors who leave clinical practice to pursue careers in medical education : a qualitative study
Abstract
Objectives: The increasing complexity and scale of medical education in the UK demands increasing numbers of medical educators. A small proportion of educators are qualified doctors, but did not reach completion of clinical training (CCT) to become consultants or general practitioners before pursuing a career exclusively in education. This study aimed to (1) explore the experiences of medical educators who left clinical practice as junior doctors and (2) identify the barriers to professional identity formation in this group.
Design: In this constructivist qualitative study, semi-structured interviews were conducted with medical educators. Audio data was recorded, transcribed and iteratively interpreted through the lens of reflexive thematic analysis.
Setting and participants: Nine UK-based educators were recruited using purposive and snowball sampling. Participants self-identified as medical educators who have experience of the transition from working as junior clinicians to holding positions exclusively in medical education. Participants had not completed clinical training before transitioning into medical education.
Results: Three broad themes were identified: (1) push factors away from clinical medicine; (2) pull factors towards medical education; (3) navigating professional identity formation as an educator. Educators reported that medical education offered positives such as improved work-life balance, professional development opportunities and a sense of being more 'upstream' in the world of education. Significant barriers to successful transition were reported, including: a lack of guidance; low respect for medical education by the wider medical profession; and disparity between the educational opportunities afforded to consultant colleagues compared with educators who left medicine before CCT.
Conclusions: Educators who leave clinical medicine before CCT perceive themselves as being disadvantaged in their education careers. This study highlights that more could be done to tackle stigmatising perceptions of a medical education career and present medical education as a viable option to junior doctors.
Date
2024-12-10
Type
Article
Subject
Education, medical
Collections
Citation
Coldicutt O, Owen K. Transition experiences of UK junior doctors who leave clinical practice to pursue careers in medical education: a qualitative study. BMJ Open. 2024 Dec 10;14(12):e088615. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2024-088615.
Journal / Source Title
BMJ Open
DOI
10.1136/bmjopen-2024-088615
PMID
39658290
Publisher
BMJ Publishing Group
Publisher’s URL
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11647326/
Publisher’s statement
© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2024. Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ Group. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.