Doctoral Degrees (Centre for Health Professions Education)

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Browsing Doctoral Degrees (Centre for Health Professions Education) by Subject "Educational evaluation -- South Africa"

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    There’s no doubt that one learns through it all : a qualitative exploration of the value surgery trainees assign to master of medicine research
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2022-04) Moxley, Karis; Blitz, Julia; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences. Centre for Health Professions Education.
    ENGLISH SUMMARY: Background: Since 2011 The Health Professionals Council of South Africa (HPCSA) has mandated the completion of a Master of Medicine (MMed) research project for specialist registration. This has introduced several challenges for the training environment and there is concern that institutions do not adequately prepare trainees for their role as scholars. MMed research has therefore received much critical resistance and stakeholders have questioned its value as part of the specialist training curriculum. To gain a deeper understanding of the affordances, enablers, and challenges of MMed research we were interested to hear how trainees construct the meaning of value in relation to their experiences. Aim: To explore the value surgery trainees assign to their MMed research experiences. Methods: This qualitative study adopted a social constructivist epistemological perspective. We purposively sampled 9 participants who had completed their research in a single surgical division at Stellenbosch University. Data were generated via semi-structured interviews with individual participants and analysed using reflexive thematic analysis. Results and discussion: We identified four key themes: 1) resentment, relief, realisation, and prerequisite; 2) the clinician versus clinician-scientist dichotomy; 3) research exposure and leadership, and 4) “there’s no doubt one learns through it all”. MMed research is a source of trainee stress but they can recognise in hindsight research has served an important role in professional development. Through experiential and social learning, trainees develop critical appraisal skills and an improved understanding of the research process and recognise the value of scholarly competencies for evidence-based medicine. Research supervision and leadership represent key enablers in this learning process. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that MMed research offers significant educational value to specialist trainees and therefore warrants continued inclusion in the curriculum. Research supervisors play an important role in managing the research process, initiating MMed candidates into the research community, and making explicit the hidden outcomes of postgraduate research. Therefore, amongst other recommendations for health professions education, we especially recommend that future research and faculty development initiatives should focus on the professional development of MMed research supervisors.