Perspectives on Medical Education Scholarship in 2025

The Journal of General Internal Medicine (JGIM) has long had a commitment to medical education. In 2005, then editors, Drs. Brent Williams and Martha Gerrity noted that a core mission of JGIM is to “disseminate research and innovations in medical education of relevance to Society of General Internal Medicine (SGIM) members and to the broader community of medical educators and medical education researchers, administrators, and policymakers.” A related objective is to provide academic general internist faculty active in medical education a peer-reviewed forum in which their work can be critiqued and recognized.¹ This was followed by the appointment of the first editors with special expertise in medical education and subsequently the first special issue on medical education in 2008.² It is valuable to look back at the 2008 lead editorial for that issue and see that many of the concerns we encounter today were present then, but also how far we have come in realizing the dream of medical education as a career, a science, and a craft.

Medical education scholarship is vital for furthering new knowledge, evaluating the impact of educational programs, and establishing evidence-based practices.³ Medical education has experienced large shifts in recent years due to adoption of hybrid learning post-pandemic, emergence of artificial intelligence (AI), and large-scale social and political movements. Medical educators have risen to the challenge and responded with programmatic innovations and scholarship to meet the needs of our time. The goal of the 2025 JGIM medical education theme issue was to promote rigorous research on current issues of broad interest to medical education These include social justice, equity, technology, quality and safety, competency-based medical education, humanities, undergraduate to graduate medical education transition, faculty development and recruitment, and retention of medical educators. For the medical issue, we received a total of 158 submissions and 44 were ultimately accepted for publication. As editors of this special issue, we acknowledge that publishing in medical education can be challenging due to lack of funding, time, resources, and the need for more research skills training.^4,5,6,7 In this editorial, we offer our perspectives on submissions received, highlight common challenges, and celebrate areas of strength in the medical education papers featured in this issue.

As our editorial team reviewed manuscripts, we were guided by the following questions: “Is it new? Is it true? Will it impact what we do?” Several common themes were identified across submissions that were not accepted. These included weak or absent conceptual frameworks, lack of specificity of the research question, issues of methodological rigor, and concerns about outcome selection and measurement.

One common challenge we noted was that conceptual frameworks based on theories, best practices, or models to clarify the underlying mechanisms pertaining to an idea or problem were notably absent in many manuscripts. Consequently, authors were unable to sufficiently explain their choice of variables and outcomes, or describe the interrelatedness of these. In a number of submissions, the research question was vague or missing critical elements. The most common explanation for this finding appeared to be the poor quality of the literature review leading up to the research question in the manuscript. Described by Steinhart and Thomas as “the foundation upon which strong scholarship is built,” a quality literature review highlights the gap a project is designed to address and provides sufficient insight to reviewers and editors that work is not duplicative.⁸

With respect to methodological rigor, articles that were not considered for this special issue primarily included qualitative methods that did not adhere to recommended standards, or were intervention studies that lacked a comparison group.⁹ Finally, with respect to outcomes, rejected studies primarily included Kirkpatrick level 1 outcomes such as satisfaction and preference, did not demonstrate alignment between outcomes and study objectives, or failed to consider learning outcomes that endure past the immediate time period of the study, thereby focusing in immediate retention instead of long-term learning or enduring changes in attitudes or skills.

In this special issue, we are proud to present articles that align deeply with SGIM’s mission, vision, and values. Specifically, we see excellent examples of innovation and excellence in education. We see particular progress in educational scholarship as it relates to high-value care, quality and safety, and diversity, equity, and inclusion. We had a small number of submissions in faculty development and the recruitment and retention of educators. It is unclear why this was the case, but these are critical areas to explore and innovate, particularly as pressures for clinical and research productivity continue to increase. We also had few articles related to AI in medical education; however, this may reflect a preference for other medical education specific journals. Specific applications of AI in selecting learners with a passion for primary care as well as AI applications supporting general internal medicine training and ongoing faculty development are warranted given the unique aspects of our field.

It fills us with gratitude for the gift of community and opportunity that SGIM and JGIM provide to those of us in this important career path. We wish to express our deep gratitude to the twenty-seven deputy editors, the editors of JGIM, and the amazing editorial staff that supported the creation of this issue. The dedication, expertise, collaboration, and collegiality that they demonstrated was an honor to observe. Their work and the work of the authors in this issue provide further evidence that “medical education—the call to teach—lies close to the heart of virtually every general internist.”¹⁰