Can nurses teach tomorrow's doctors? A nursing perspective on involvement in community-based medical education

The increasing importance of primary care suggests an important role for th e whole primary healthcare team in the education of `tomorrow's doctors'. F ew studies have evaluated the contribution and views of staff other than ge neral practitioners. We used a questionnaire survey to elicit the perspecti ve of 65 community-based nurses involved in a new undergraduate medical cou rse. Some 67% of the cohort had already undertaken training to teach others , and were confident of their teaching skills but were overly reliant on th e general practitioners for information, and on the goodwill of colleagues for time to teach. The findings suggest a need for structural changes in th e process of multidisciplinary medical education, supporting the need for t eaching commitments to be coordinated at practice rather than individual tu tor level. The high level of professional development for teaching among co mmunity nurses suggests that there is a sound basis for encouraging such va luable professional input into medical education in the future.