Peter Cantillon is an educationalist with a special interest in clinical education and faculty development. He holds a personal chair in primary care.  Peter chairs the Postgraduate Course Development Group in the School of Medicine and leads the School's faculty development strategy. Having just completed a successful three-year period as head of general practice, he is now focusing on establishing a major international educational research programme on workplace teacher development in collaboration with Maastricht University. Peter acts as an accreditor of Postgraduate Colleges and their associated training programmes with the Medical Council and sits on the Council’s Monitoring Standards Sub-committee. Peter has been invited to become the principle external examiner for Manchester School of Medicine and is a current external examiner for the new Graduate Entry Medical School at the University of Limerick.

Educationalist roles

A major part of Peter's work is the development of healthcare educators and the promotion of high quality clinical education. He established and leads the faculty development group at NUI Galway, GAME, (the Galway Alliance of Medical Educators), (see our blog at GAMENUIG). He established Ireland's first inter-professional Masters course in clinical education in 1985. This highly successful blended learning course has 180 graduates to date, many of whom have used the qualification to develop their careers as senior clinical educators and leaders in health care education.

Peter developed an approach to making learning theory accessible for clinical educators through the ABC in Learning and Teaching series with the BMJ in 2003. The 12 article series was subsequently developed into a successful book by BMJ Publishing in 2003. The book is currently available in a 2nd edition published by Wiley Blackwell, 2010.

Peter co-founded the Irish Network of Medical Educators, (INMED) in 2008 to promote healthcare education research and faculty development in Ireland. The organisation has a membership of 120 healthcare educators in 2012. Peter is the current chair of INMED and is leading the redevelopment of the organisation toward becoming a major provider of faculty development and education research sponsorship. The INMED membership is expected to grow considerably through the development of strategic relationships with the Irish postgraduate colleges, and the equivalent UK organisation, ASME (the Association for the Study of Medical Education). The organisation plans to launch its first research bursary scheme in 2013.

Peter is an active promoter of educational research regionally and nationally through the Masters in Clinical Education programme, (62 registered students in 2012-13) and through the growing influence of INMED.