Resident as teacher: educating the educators.

BACKGROUND: Medical students receive their clinical training from various sources: from residents during informal teaching sessions and from attending physicians during more formalized rounds. As a result of the increasing pressures of clinical medicine, efforts need to be focused on the identification and training of the next generation of clinical educators. DESCRIPTION: We have created a pilot medical education elective for residents which pairs training in teaching skills with formal teaching opportunities during protected blocks of elective time, an opportunity which is rare in most residency programs and may provide for more effective teaching skill acquisition.
RESULTS: Feedback from the participants demonstrates widespread acceptance of the pilot program.
CONCLUSIONS: We believe this new model would provide motivated residents with the skills and the protected time to teach, and help create a future generation of attendings better able to teach.