The lecturer-tutor in undergraduate medical education; navigating complexity as “a recruiter, a timetabler, an administrator, a counsellor”

Background Tutors play an important role in the delivery of effective undergraduate medical education (UGME). These roles commonly involve competing clinical, educational and research commitments. We sought to obtain a rich description of these posts from doctors working in them. Methods We used a pragmatist, sequential explanatory mixed-methods design with a sampling frame of clinical lecturer/tutors in 5 Irish medical schools. Purposive sampling was used for recruitment. Quantitative data collected from a validated online questionnaire were used to inform a semi-structured interview question guide. Thematic analysis was conducted independently by each of the study researchers, using a coding frame derived in part from the findings of the online questionnaire. Quantitative and qualitative mixing occurred during data collection, analysis and reporting. Results 34 tutors completed the online survey with 7 volunteers for interview. Most respondents took the job to gain experience in either educational practice (79.4%) or in research (61.8%). Major themes to emerge were the diverse interactions with students, balancing multiple professional commitments, a high degree of role-autonomy, mis-perception of role by non-tutor colleagues, challenges around work-life balance and unpredictable work demands. Using a complexity theory lens, the tutor role was defined by its relational interactions with numerous stakeholders, all in the context of an environment that changed regularly and in an unpredictable manner. Conclusions The undergraduate tutor works in a demanding role balancing educational and non-educational commitments with suboptimal senior guidance and feedback. The role is notable for its position within a complex adaptive system. An understanding of the system’s interactions recognises the non-linearity of the role. Using a complex systems lens, we propose improvements to undergraduate education centred around the tutor. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12909-023-04560-2.