Roles of a clinical teacher: Clinical diagnoses vs educational diagnoses

Abstract

Teaching is a task that many healthcare professionals have to undertake. These teaching activities often take place at clinical settings when patients are being care for at the same time. The clinical teachers require skills to make clinical diagnoses to provide care to patients; and to ‘diagnose’ individual students’ learning needs in order to maximise the learning opportunities. This demands dual sets of skills which have to be utilised by the clinical teachers concurrently. The speaker will share his clinical teaching experience in tackling such situations which can be challenging at times. With practice and guidance, the needs of both the patients and the students can be met. Clinical teaching can be a most satisfying experience for clinical professionals.