10 must-read articles if you want to be a medical educator

Pursuing a career in medical education? Whether you’re a resident, fellow or an established physician considering your career options, this must-read list of articles is for you. See which resources one expert in the medical education field recommends to boost your med-ed abilities. 

Journal of Graduate Medical Education editor-in-chief Gail M. Sullivan, MD, said that in the early years of her career very few educators held degrees tied to the educational side of medicine. But in the last 40 years, that trend has changed.

“Now, there are increasing numbers of medical school and residency program faculty with formal training in education,” Dr. Sullivan wrote in a recent editorial.

While such training can broaden employment opportunities, she contends that there’s no cookie-cutter path to developing educational expertise. 

“Many current program directors, medical school teachers and other clinic educators did not major in education in college, nor will they have the finances and time to obtain an additional degree,” she said.  

Physicians and trainees can launch a med ed career without necessarily pursuing additional costly degrees: “Fortunately, it is not the initials after one’s name that are essential but the skill,” she said. “Although experimental learning is among the most powerful ways to learn, there are many terrific articles that can enhance one’s knowledge, and if translated into practice, one’s skills as a teacher, program director or educational researcher.”

Here are some of the top articles she recommends to improve your skills as a medical educator:

• “To play or not to play: Leveraging video in medical education”: Journal of Graduate Medical Education
•  “Applying the science of learning to medical education”: Medical Education

• “The adult learner: A mythical species”: Academic Medicine 
• “Do learners really know best? Urban legends in education”: Educational Psychologist

• “Anatomy of mentoring”: The Journal of Pediatrics
• “A systematic review of qualitative research on the meaning and characteristics of mentoring in academic medicine”: Journal of General Internal Medicine

• “Educational strategies to promote clinical diagnostic reasoning”: The New England Journal of Medicine
• “Student perceptions of effective small group teaching”:  Medical Education

• “Data dredging, salami-slicing and other successful strategies to ensure rejection: 12 tips on how to not get your paper published”: Advances in Health Sciences Education
• “Writing education studies for publication”: Journal of Graduate Medical Education

For additional reading recommendations, view Dr. Sullivan’s full reading list.