Teaching the next generation of health workers is considered a core role for all clinicians, yet in practice it is often regarded as an optional activity. While health professionals are expected to teach, many are reluctant to attend faculty development initiatives that provide the training. There are many and varied reasons for this: lack of personal motivation or support from managers to undertake additional education in clinical education, staff shortages and, perhaps, a misunderstanding of the expectations of today’s professionals. Moreover, position descriptions of clinicians seldom include a role and responsibility to educate. Thus clinicians who do undertake additional formal education to provide clinical education may have limited opportunities for promotion after making such an effort. An adjustment to pre-registration clinical curricula that highlights the importance of and focuses on developing competence, capacity and capability in clinical education may be the key.
This paper presents a “12 tips” framework to embed a proactive approach to learning clinical education skills (PACE) into a program of study. The 12 tips of PACE propose how, from the beginning of their undergraduate practicum experiences, pre-registration learners can be prepared to take up their professional responsibilities as clinical educators. The PACE framework can also be applied to the post-registration curriculum. The PACE model has the potential to both strengthen the skill base and increase the size of the clinical education workforce by including clinical education skills as an integral part of all clinical training.