Teaching medical students is often a challenge for physicians who work at teaching hospitals, especially as medical education is becoming increasingly structured and demanding. This study was conducted to evaluate the physician’s perception of their role as teachers. An anonymous questionnaire was distributed among all the physicians of the general paediatric team at Qatar’s only teaching hospital and 35 third year medical students from Weill-Cornell Medical College,  Qatar. As for results, 51 questionnaires were analyzed from the clinicians (70%from residents, 15% from fellows and 13% from attending physicians). The response rate in all 3 groups was above 90%. All but 6% doctors agreed that medical students were an integral part of inpatient teams yet only 43% felt that they had adequate time to get to know the students during their 3-week clerkship. Moreover, 64% of physicians stated that their direct teaching contact with students was less than 2 hours a week while 33% physicians expressed concerns about inadequate time for bed side teaching. Furthermore, 36% admitted they were inconsistent in providing feedback. The students’ survey results concurred with the physician’s opinions in most aspects. We concluded that physicians found it difficult to incorporate teaching into their busy clinical schedule, perhaps because they are not trained teachers. It is imperative that teaching hospitals provide workshops on medical education and allocate protected teaching time to all physicians, including residents, so that they can include teaching activities in their daily patient care.

Authors: Mohamed A. Hendaus, Shabina Khan, Samar O. Mohmed, Yasser Al-Samman, Tushar Khanna, Ahmad H. Al-Hammadi

Published in: Canada International Conference on Education, 2023

• Date of Conference: 26-28 June, 2023
• DOI: 10.20533/CICE.2023.0033
• Electronic ISBN: 978-1-913572-58-7
• Conference Location: Residence and Conference Centre, Toronto, Canada