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In Australia, doctors undertaking advanced training to become general practitioners work under the supervision of clinical educators. Primarily clinicians, these clinical educators participate in one day of teaching-related professional development annually, generally a workshop. Shortcomings with this form of professional development led to the development of a quality improvement focused intervention that is facilitated in the workplace and based on the clinical educator's self-identified concerns. Drawing on teacher action research and feasibility study methodologies we explored this novel form of professional development by asking 'Can this intervention work?' We employed an embedded multiple case study design, trialling the intervention in four settings. The intervention's constituent activities were acceptable to participants; including a preparedness to experience discomfort for the purpose of improving their teaching practices. They perceived the intervention as convenient and the workload manageable. Participants were motivated to experiment with new teaching behaviours, but measuring outcomes was challenging. Medical educators facilitating the intervention perceived their tasks as cognitively 'hard work'. The findings provide support for this workplace-based intervention as a feasible form of professional development, which should be implemented on a larger scale and evaluated for impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Medical school is a challenging environment that requires students to deal effectively with stress borne out of the medical education environment, as well as their personal lives. Previous research has not systemically distinguished between academic and personal sources of stress, and in particular has not explored the independent contribution that academic stressors make to medical student depression.Purposes: This study aimed to investigate whether academic stressors make a unique contribution to the level of depressive symptoms in medical students, over and above the contribution made by personal stressors alone.Methods: Sixty-seven medical students completed an online questionnaire designed to measure the total number of recent life events (personal and academic), and their perceived impact, using a modified version of the Psychiatric Epidemiology Research Interview Life Events Scale. Depressive symptoms were measured using the Centre for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale.Results: Both the total number of personal stressors,r(67) = .363,p= .003, and their perceived impact,r(67) = .412,p= .001, were found to be positively related to depressive symptoms. A positive relationship was also observed between depressive symptoms and the total number of academic stressors,r(67) = .321,p= .008, and their perceived impact,r(67) = .489,p< .001. In addition, it was found that the perceived impact of academic stressors was able to explain higher levels of depressive symptoms in medical students over and above the effect afforded by personal stressors alone.Conclusion: The findings of this study suggest that stress borne out of the medical school environment contributes to depressive symptoms in medical students over and above the contribution made by personal stressors alone. This indicates that although it is important to help students cope with stress borne out of their personal lives, interventions by medical schools aimed at reducing the impact of academic stressors on medical student depression may also be of great importance. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]