Medical teachers and teaching qualification.

Abstract

Medical Education' is the study, research and application of educational processes employed in the training of physicians for continuous quality and standard in the production of competent physicians for improvement of healthcare delivery. It has evolved into a discipline with its own specializations such as Curriculum Development, Educational Foundations and Theory, Assessment Techniques, and Educational Methodology among others. Worldwide, high quality training and education of physicians is increasingly being recognised as critical to global health and emphasis is being made that the training of these physicians be done by professionally competent medical teachers. Medical school teachers should therefore be trained in educational foundations and theory as well as in modern educational instructional methodologies. Expertise does not automatically translate to effective teaching. In Nigeria, nearly all medical school teachers have no professional or formal training in teaching though they are experts in their fields (i.e. content experts). Evidences from research show improved learning of medical trainees when instructed by teachers trained in pedagogy and other educational processes. Teacher evaluation though alien to the Nigerian medical schools system, is an integral aspect of pedagogy and should be undertaken to ensure that teaching quality and facilitation of learning are enhanced. However such evaluation makes sense only when the teachers have been trained. There is a real necessity that medical school teachers be trained through short term courses,
workshops and seminars so that the quality of teaching and imparting knowledge can be improved and sustained. Invariably, this is a call also for the establishment of departments of Medical Education in our Medical Schools across the country.