The award for Best Publication for 2016 was presented to Prof Susan van Schalkwyk at a recent conference of the South African Association of Health Educationalists' (SAAHE).

Van Schalkwyk, who heads the Centre for Health Professions Education (CHPE) at Stellenbosch University's Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences (FMHS), received the award for an article entitled "Understanding Rural Clinical Learning Spaces: Being and Becoming a doctor" that was published in the journal Medical Teacher. Profs Juanita Bezuidenhout (a former colleague at the CHPE) and Marietjie de Villiers, from the Division of Family Medicine and Primary Care, were co-authors of the article.

It is one of a number of articles that have come from a longitudinal (5-year) study that was conducted to evaluate the implementation of the FMHS' Ukwanda Rural Clinical School (RCS).

"This was one of seven articles that have been published about the implementation of the RCS… and we moved on further from simply analysing the qualitative data, to look at developing a theoretical position that can help explain the RCS 'phenomenon'," explains Van Schalkwyk.

According to her this award is a feather in the cap of the FMHS and the CHPE and serves as a catalyst to finalise the last few articles from the study.

Health professions education research is a growing field of enquiry internationally. "Research is critical if we are to understand the unique contexts within which our students learn and our teachers teach. We need to grow the body of knowledge so that we are better positioned to recommend meaningful teaching and learning practices," says Van Schalkwyk.