How does teaching clinical skills influence instructors' professional behaviour?

Purpose: "Introduction to Clinical Medicine" in Isfahan University of Medical Sciences and Health Services is an initiative in which general practitioners work as instructors and have the opportunity to experience teaching inaddition to clinical practice. Since teaching, affects both teacher and students, this study aims to assess the influence of teaching clinical skills on the instructors' psychological, social and professional behaviour.Methods: This was performed as a qualitative study. The research population consisted of instructors of “Introduction to Clinical Medicine” who were all general practitioners and acted as facilitator in small groupsworking on physical examination and case discussion. The data collecting tool was a semi-structured interview which was recorded on the tape. Then, the interviews were transcribed and confirmed by interviewees at the end. 10 instructors were interviewed. The data were analysed according to Colaizzi model.Results: After coding the data to 38 main subjects, they were classified into three main categories including professional, psychological and social effects. The influence of teaching on professional performance includedperforming a thorough and correct physical examination, taking a detailed and correct history, increasing decision making ability and increasing professional knowledge. Some of the psychological effects were increasing selfconfidence, job satisfaction and morale. The social effects of teaching were increasing social contacts, having a relationship with an academic environment and having a respectful job.Conclusion: Considering the positive effects of teaching on instructors, teaching clinical skills by general practitioners can increase general practitioners knowledge and clinical skills and improve their morale. It isrecommended to train general practitioners both for teaching skills and clinical skills and consider this, as an opportunity for physicians’ continuing education.