title: Medical students as teachers: how preclinical teaching opportunities can create an early awareness of the role of physician as teacher.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  As future physicians, questions about when medical students realize they will have to teach remain under-explored.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To understand when students serving in pre-clinical teaching roles make the connection between teaching and being a physician.
  
  
  METHODS
  Medical students involved in a peer instruction program included: (1) archived first-year student interview candidate data (n = 60/150); (2) focus groups of first-year students selected as instructors (n = 16/60); and (3) focus groups of second-year students (n = 16/24) who taught for the program. A modified extended-term mixed-method research design involved data from the pre-hire interviews and post-hire focus group.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Prior to teaching, none of the first year interviewees made an explicit connection between teaching and being a physician. The new instructors selected to teach minimally made a connection and only after prompting. The majority of the experienced instructors did make the connection; however, and did so spontaneously.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  It was only after they taught medicine-related material that students saw the benefits of teaching as a way of preparing for becoming a physician and not merely as a way to review or help their peers.
authors.affiliation: Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Division of Graduate Medical Education, College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, 622 W. 168th Street, PH 16, New York 10032, USA. jmh2152@columbia.edu
authors.forename: Jennifer M Harms
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Amorosa
authors.forename: Lisa A
authors.initials: LA
authors.lastname: Mellman
authors.forename: Mark J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Graham
mesh_terms: D015331:Cohort Studies; D003479:Curriculum; D017144:Focus Groups; D006801:Humans; D010379:Peer Group; D013337:Students, Medical; D013663:Teaching / Q000458:organization & administration*