Making the leap to medical education: a qualitative study of medical educators' experiences

Medical educators often have prior and primary experience in other academic and clinical disciplines. Individuals seeking successful careers in the education of medical students and doctors must, at some point in their development, make a conscious transition into a new identity as a medical educator. This is a necessary move if individuals are to commit to acquiring and maintaining specialist expertise in medical education. Some achieve this transition successfully, whereas others struggle and may even lose interest and abandon the endeavour. We explored senior educators' experiences of achieving the transition into medical education and their views on what helps and what hinders the process.

In 2015 we conducted three focus groups with 15 senior medical educators. All focus group discussions were audiorecorded and transcribed verbatim. We applied transition theory to guide our deductive analysis, using Schlossberg's Four S (4S) framework to code and report participants' self-reported perceptions of those factors relating to Self, Situation, Support and Strategy that had assisted them to make a successful transition to a fully acknowledged medical educator identity. Through inductive analysis, we then identified 17 explanatory sub-themes common to all three focus groups.

Background and circumstances, individual motivation, a sense of control, organisational support, and effective networking and information-seeking behaviour were factors identified as contributing to successful transition into, and maintenance of, a strong self-identity as a medical educator.

The experiences of established medical educators and, in particular, an exploration of the factors that have facilitated their transition to an acknowledged self-identity as a medical educator could assist in supporting new educators to cope with the changes involved in developing as a medical educator.