Yesterday a learner, today a teacher too: Residents as teachers in 2000

Resident physicians spend numerous hours every week teaching medical studen ts and fellow residents, and only rarely are they taught how to teach. They can, however, be taught to teach more effectively. Teaching skills improve ment initiatives for residents are taking a more prominent place in the edu cational literature. Limited evidence now suggests that better resident tea chers mean better academic performance by learners. A small but important b ody of research supports selected interventions designed to improve residen ts' teaching skills, but not all studies have demonstrated significant educ ational benefits for learners. An increasing number of valid and reliable i nstruments are available to assess residents' clinical teaching, including objective structured teaching examinations and rating scales. In all specia lties, rigorous research in evidence-based teacher training for residents w ill help prepare academic medical centers to meet the diverse and changing learning needs of today's physicians-in-training.