Education for primary care : an official publication of the Association of Course Organisers, National Association of GP Tutors, World Organisation of Family Doctors
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In the licensing process in Finland, of the doctors who have taken their medical degree outside the EU/EEA, a certificate of a language test in Finnish or Swedish is demanded. The Department of General Practice at the University of Tampere takes care of the licensing examinations, including two written medical knowledge tests and clinical skills assessment. The doctors have to prove that they can manage as primary care physicians. ⋯ The Finnish licensing system of non-EEA doctors is equal for all participants. Experienced general practitioners act as evaluators. The purpose is to make responsible assessments of the competency of the doctors, also taking into account the possibility that some doctors may continue to other EEA countries and start practice on the basis of the Finnish licensure.
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Most teacher development initiatives focus on enhancing knowledge of teaching (pedagogy), whilst largely ignoring other important features of teacher knowledge such as subject matter knowledge and awareness of the learning context. Furthermore, teachers' ability to learn from faculty development interventions is limited by their existing (often implicit) pedagogical knowledge and beliefs. Pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) represents a model of teacher knowledge incorporating what they know about subject matter, pedagogy and context. PCK can be used to explore teachers' prior knowledge and to structure faculty development programmes so that they take account of a broader range of teachers' knowledge. We set out to examine the application of a PCK model in a general practice education setting. ⋯ PCK represents a useful model for conceptualising clinical teacher prior knowledge in three domains, namely subject matter, learning context and pedagogy. It can and should be used as a simple guiding framework by faculty developers to inform the design and delivery of their faculty development programmes.