The Evolution of the Clinician–Educator in the United States and Canada: Personal Reflections Over the Last 45 Years

The challenging and changing face of medicine over the last 45 years of the author’s career has dictated where faculty members’ primary interaction with patients occurs, how they teach trainees, and how they measure educational outcomes. The transfer of patient care from the inpatient to the ambulatory setting in the late 20th century was instrumental in creating a “new’ model for faculty—that is, the clinician–educator (CE). This individual has been defined as a faculty member whose primary responsibility as part of the academic mission is patient care and whose focus is on the theoretical constructs that inform excellent teaching and effective learning, applying these to create and inform educational scholarship. Three major forces have affected the CE over time—namely, faculty development, educational scholarship, and the advent of communities of learners. This Invited Commentary traces the evolvement of the CE from the perspective of the author.