Teachers and Trainers in Family Medicine

A Family Doctor, on fulfilling a set of criteria, can undertake courses to become a Teacher in Family Medicine.
Teachers' Courses are organized according to the demand by the Malta College of Family Doctors. Such courses are also organized by other entities such as the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) www.rcgp.org.uk
and the European Academy of Teachers (EURACT) https://euract.woncaeurope.org/. Successful completion and eventual certification makes it possible for the family doctor to apply with the Department of Health to become a Trainer in Family Medicine and have a Trainee in Family Medicine assigned for the duration of the training program.

Additionally there are courses organized by RCGP and EURACT on assessment. Successful completion and certification makes the family doctor eligible for applying to the Assessment Team responsible for carrying out the Summative Examination.

Continuous learning:
The Trainers in Family Medicine have yearly update sessions organized by the Training Co-ordinators of the Specialist Training Programme and by the MCFD.
The EURACT Trainers’ portfolio helps the trainer keep abreast of teaching techniques and remain active in the medical community.

The Malta College of Family Doctors highly encourages Trainers in Family Medicine to fill out the portfolio and submit it for review by EURACT. There are two levels of certification: Competent and Expert. For each certificate, the trainer is given a grade from: Novice, Competent, Proficient and Expert. Trainers will be able to include this certificate in their Curriculum Vitae. This process is optional but recommended. This portfolio is made up of 13 domains grouped into 3 categories: Learning Environment, Provision of Education, and Educational Process. The trainer would need to choose at least 7 or 5 domains, for Competent and Expert respectively, and upload pieces of evidence to prove they’re competent in the domain. The whole process is guided. It’s self-explanatory and there’s a description of the evidence required for each domain. There are 4 or 5 pieces of evidence for each domain (competent or expert respectively), from which one must choose to upload 2 or 3, again accordingly. Evidence generally includes letters of recommendation, multi-source feedback and a list of published abstracts, among others.
Submission of portfolio for review: Once complete, the application is submitted for appraisal by EURACT. The trainer either receives a certificate with an accompanying grade or is asked to review certain parts of the application and resubmit when ready. The process is free for EURACT members but there is a fee of approximately 150 Eur for non-members.

Links:
Application and signing up for a portfolio to explore further: http://euract-appraisal.woncaeurope.org/user_panel/
Types of evidence: http://euract-appraisal.woncaeurope.org/types-of-evidence/
The handbook: http://euract-appraisal.woncaeurope.org/uploaded/manager/files/Handbook_for_applicants_ENG_2.pdf
Requirements for the Competent Teacher: http://euract-appraisal.woncaeurope.org/requirements-for-competent-teacher/
Requirements for the Expert Teacher: http://euract-appraisal.woncaeurope.org/requirements-for-expert-teacher/

For more information related to the Specialist Training Programme in Family Medicine go to the December 2014 edition of the JMCFD (Journal of the Malta College of Family Doctors) - https://issuu.com/mcfd-malta/docs/jmcfd_dec14