Residents' perceptions of their role as teachers.

Teaching by residents has long been recognized as essential to the education of interns and medical students, but how residents view their role as educators has not been examined in great detail. For this purpose a questionnaire was constructed and administered to 55 internal medicine residents at the McGaw Medical Center of Northwestern University. Responses indicate that the residents enjoyed teaching and considered it a critical component of their own experience and education. These residents' views appear unrelated to their previous teaching or academic backgrounds or to plans for an academic career. A number of variables correlated with teaching satisfaction. The teaching experience can be improved, the survey suggests, by lessening distractions and interruptions that occur during teaching sessions, freeing residents of some other obligations so that more time may be devoted to teaching, increasing faculty members' observation and guidance of teaching, and carefully structuring the content of the residents' teaching sessions.