Dr. Elaine Burke

I am an Assistant Professor in the Discipline of Medical Education in Trinity College Dublin (TCD), Ireland. I studied Medicine at University College Cork, Ireland, graduating in 2005 with an honours degree, following which I spent 10 years in full-time clinical practice, working in Internal and Palliative Medicine. Since 2015 I have held a formal educational role in Trinity College Dublin when I joined the Trinity Intern Training Network as Intern Lecturer/ Registrar and subsequently Course Co-ordinator for the Master in Medicine, Research Fellow, and now Assistant Professor. In 2018, I graduated with distinction from a Master"s degree in Medicine (Population Health) (TCD), and completed a PhD in Medical Education on the subject of clinical academic careers in 2022 (TCD). I am one of the founders of the Academic Internship Track, a combined clinical and academic training programme for junior doctors in Ireland. My research interests are in the field of clinical academic careers and equality. My goals are to contribute to building and sustaining a diverse and inclusive clinician scientist skills pool in Ireland, and explore how strategies to sustain this workforce could be deployed more generally to improve healthcare professionals' training experiences and retention. Other work has included the creation of an educational board game to help junior doctors navigate collaboration in the clinical work environment, which was awarded funding from the HSE NDTP (National Doctors Training and Planning body) to upscale nationally.

  Gender Equality   Innovation in learning   Medical Education   Medical Sciences, Research

My research interests are in the field of clinical academic careers and equality. My goals are to contribute to building and sustaining a diverse and inclusive clinician scientist skills pool in Ireland, and explore how strategies to sustain this workforce could be deployed more generally to improve healthcare professionals' training experiences and retention. My Master's thesis was titled "Introduction of an academic track for internship in Ireland: views of undergraduate medical students" and involved an anonymous survey of 4th year medical students as key stakeholders in the development of the AIT. My PhD thesis was titled "An exploration of the role of the clinical academic and strategies to sustain and build the clinical academic workforce". The work comprised a concept analysis of the term "Clinical academic" based on its current use in the scientific literature; an exploration of the professional identity of clinical academics using Repertory Grid Technique, an evaluation of a combined clinical and academic training programme for junior doctors, the academic internship track (AIT), using the CIPP model, and a resumé study investigating the effect of anonymising applications to the AIT on gender balance. Findings arising from these works have been presented and published in international peer reviewed journals and have formed the evidence base for the creation, implementation, and recently, expansion, of the AIT in Ireland. Building on this work, my current research projects include the TCD MED Seed Award- funded IMAJINE study: Intrinsic MotivAtion, Job satisfaction and retention among INtErns. This study explores the effect of protected time (the AIT) on interns' intrinsic motivation, job satisfaction and career goals with the aim of informing strategies to enhance postgraduate training experiences and retain healthcare professionals in Ireland.