How to Harness Education Fellows to Optimise Clinical Placement Capacity

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Healthcare Workforce Development
• Clinical Placements

Background:

• Global demand for healthcare professionals is rising due to demographic shifts and complex comorbidities.
• Clinical placement saturation limits the expansion of undergraduate healthcare student numbers.
• Existing clinical teaching fellows have clinical responsibilities, impacting their educational capacity.

Purpose of the Study:

• To explore the deployment of education fellows (EFs) to create capacity in clinical placements.
• To enhance the quality of undergraduate clinical placement learning experiences.
• To propose EF-led innovation for sustainable healthcare workforce expansion.

Main Methods:

• Focus on educational interventions within hospital clinical placements.
• Utilizing education fellows (EFs) who have no clinical commitments.
• Developing diverse undergraduate learning, mentoring, and assessment activities coordinated by EFs.

Main Results:

• EFs can reliably coordinate and deliver educational activities, alleviating senior staff.
• Integrated EF-led innovation can lead to consistent, high-quality placement learning.
• This approach can grow placement capacity without compromising patient care.

Conclusions:

• Education fellows offer an innovative solution to clinical placement saturation.
• EF-led initiatives can support sustainable expansion of the healthcare workforce.
• Reimagining placement structures is crucial for meeting future healthcare demands.