Come join the 2025 Clinician Educator Incubator!

Disclaimer: I am the Programme Lead for the Clinician Educator Incubator and a former Director of the Australia and New Zealand Intensive Care Foundation.

Now in its sixth year, the Clinician Educator Incubator has proven to be an effective vehicle for building a community of Clinician Educators. We learns together and develop lasting relationships that allow us to share problems and solve them collaboratively.

The Incubator is a year-long professional development programme for clinicians engaged in health professions education, with a focus on the critical care specialties in the Australia and New Zealand setting.

If you are a clinician who wants to develop as a scholarly educator, apply best practices and innovations to health professions education, and help lead critical care education in the 21st century, we invite you to work with us and join our community.

How to apply?

Applications for the 2025 Incubator are now open! Complete the Expression of Interest Registration Form to start the application process. EOIs close February 10th 2025.

Applicants will subsequently need to submit the following for assessment by the Selection Committee:

• Current Curriculum Vitae (with Educator’s Portfolio, if available): This should outline specifically all the formal training and previous experiences in medical or health professions education.
• Short form biography
  • Share with a photograph and a 500-word biography that describes your:
    • Formal and informal background in critical care clinical education
    • Intended contribution to the critical care/ health professions education community from involvement in the Incubator
    • Your intended career interests and goals development
• Letter of Support Form completed by your departmental/ unit Director or Manager, or a recognised leader in Health Professions Education (click here to download letter template).
• Letter for special consideration (optional) – Please include this if you feel you qualify for need-based financial assistance (do not exceed 500 words).

Who gets selected to join the Clinician Educator Incubator?

Preference will be given to applicants who are clinicians that are actively involved in any of the following interprofessional learning activities:

1. clinical teaching
2. work integrated learning activities
3. team training 
4. undergraduate, post graduate university educational programmes, and/or
5. simulation-based education

We are primarily focussed on critical care-related specialties and we are openly interprofessional – physicians, nurses, and allied health professions of all stripes are all welcome!

 What is a Clinician Educator exactly?

Good question!

The Incubator aims to promote the role of Clinician Educators and help individuals develop themselves in this role. Based on the work of Sherbino, Frank, and Snell (2014), we view the key tasks of the Clinician Educator as (1) maintain clinical expertise, (2) provide best practice education and teaching, (3) engage in education scholarship and/or research, and (4) engage in, or consult on, education programme leadership, design and improvement. Of course, we get to debate this definition during the programme 😉

A Clinician Educator can be from any health profession. It is distinct from a Clinical Educator who we view as an educator that provides clinical teaching and learning opportunities.

Sherbino J, Frank JR, Snell L. Defining the key roles and competencies of the clinician-educator of the 21st century: a national mixed-methods study. Acad Med. 2014;89(5):783-9. [pubmed]

What are the benefits?

There are many!

Participants will:

• gain personal access to experts and leaders from numerous clinical and non-clinical arenas
• embark on a year-long curriculum designed by experts in health professions education
• receive mentorship for their own health professions education projects, scholarly activities, and career development
• create scholarly outputs that promote health professions education in critical care
• join a community of practitioners who will develop and learn together, support one another, and collaborate together throughout their careers
• supplement other health professions education activities (e.g. university qualifications) with a programme and community that is focussed on creating solutions at the “coal face”, embedded in workplace learning, and is truly interprofessional in nature.

Furthermore, all proceeds from the programme are donated to the Australian and New Zealand Intensive Care Foundation to support health professions education projects and the professional development of Clinician Educators. The Clinician Educator Incubator is proud to be associated with its fantastic supporter organisations: ACCCN, ANZAHPE, ANZICS, CENA, and CICM.

To find out more, visit the Clinician Educator Incubator homepage on LITFL.com.