The medical educator in the 21st century: a personal perspective

Academic faculty involved in medical education are set apart from educators in other fields by a different set of expectations and responsibilities. For a subgroup of such faculty, classified in this paper as clinician educators and educational leaders, their role as educators typically defines their primary academic contribution and mode of professional advancement. A variety of environmental factors, classified under the categories of changes in the healthcare system, changes in the educational environment, changes in the educational approach, and faculty pressures, present a series of challenges to these medical educators and to other teaching faculty at the beginning of the 21st century. Ten such factors are identified in this article, followed by a series of suggested approaches for addressing these environmental challenges.