Primary Care Perspectives on Education Scholarship: A Qualitative Synthesis

Abstract

Background and Objectives: A significant portion of medical education takes place in primary care settings with family medicine clinician teachers that have variable backgrounds in teaching. Ernest Boyer’s concept of education scholarship calls on faculty to systematically study and innovate their teaching practices. This meta-ethnographic review synthesizes the literature on primary care clinician teachers’ perspectives and experiences of integrating education scholarship in practice. Methods: We conducted an electronic database search in PubMed/Medline, Scopus, ERIC, and Web of Science for primary research articles published between January 2000 and August 2021. In the included articles, researchers studied primary care physicians’ and/or residents’ perspectives of clinical teaching and reported qualitative results (eg, interviews, focus groups). Of the 1,454 articles found in the search, we included 33 in the final synthesis. We used line-by-line descriptive coding of the qualitative data to develop analytical themes. Results: Four main themes emerged from our synthesis: (1) perceptions of clinical teaching (lack of confidence, presumed teaching competency, lack of formal recognition); (2) clinical teaching strategies (learner-centered teaching, ad hoc teaching, role modeling, mentorship); (3) benefits of clinical teaching (shared learning experience, networking, personal interest, career satisfaction); and (4) challenges of clinical teaching (inadequate time, compensation, conflicting responsibilities). Conclusions: Clinician teachers identified several common factors regarding their scholarly roles but had difficulty describing them in relation to education scholarship. Institutional support, resources, and awareness are needed to assist family medicine clinician teachers to further implement Boyer’s concept of education scholarship in practice—specifically, to study, evaluate, and innovate current clinical teaching strategies.