Clinician educators – local respect and national anonymity

I spent this week as a visiting professor at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.  My long time friend and colleague, Dr. Robert Wigton, has endowed this professorship.  I gave a few talks, and met with many clinician-educators.  The groups included internal medicine hospital specialists, outpatient specialists and med-peds faculty.  I worked predominantly with junior faculty, discussing their careers and how to improve. During these many conversations I spoke with several senior, highly respected clinical educators.  These stars have influenced and taught Nebraska medical students for years.  Talk to any graduate of that medical school and you will hear them talk with great awe and respect for these educators.  And nationally, few academic general internists have heard of them. A great example, LeeRoy Meyer, M.D., who died 12 years ago, holds a special reverence for many.  His name appears in many sites at Nebraska, and yet he was clearly a local phenomenon. One of the current education stars, who has been a great friend for many years, opined that clinician educators are the “offensive linemen” of medical schools (he and I are both huge college football fan).  He continued that master clinician educators are essential for the medical school teams success, and are only noticed when they do something wrong. Sure there are teaching awards.  Sure these faculty do the critically important “grunt work” of clinical teaching.  They get mu...
Source: DB's Medical Rants - Category: Internal Medicine Authors: Tags: Medical Rants Source Type: blogs