Teaching in daily clinical practice: a necessary evil or an opportunity? Doctors as teachers.

Teaching is an important part of our medical role as physicians. Though all doctors are usually well prepared for their clinical roles, few are trained to teach. It can be demonstrated that improved teaching performance leads to better learning outcomes for students and doctors. However, clinical teaching faces many challenges and problems. The series "Teaching in daily clinical practice," which commences with this article, will describe basic educational principles that are applicable in all phases of the learning and teaching of students, junior doctors and speciality trainees.