A national Web site for residents as teachers

Resident Physicians as Clinical Educators in Anesthesiology: A Narrative Review

The importance of resident physicians as clinical educators is widely acknowledged in many clinical specialties and by national accreditation organizations for medical education. Within anesthesiology training programs, there is growing attention to the role of trainees as clinical educators. This narrative review describes the theoretical and demonstrated benefits of clinical teaching by residents in anesthesiology and other medical fields, summarizes current efforts to support and promote residents as educators, and suggests ways in which anesthesiology training programs can further assess and develop the role of residents as clinical educators.

Simulation in graduate medical education 2008: a review for emergency medicine

Health care simulation includes a variety of educational techniques used to complement actual patient experiences with realistic yet artificial exercises. This field is rapidly growing and is widely used in emergency medicine (EM) graduate medical education (GME) programs. We describe the state of simulation in EM resident education, including its role in learning and assessment. The use of medical simulation in GME is increasing for a number of reasons, including the limitations of the 80-hour resident work week, patient dissatisfaction with being "practiced on," a greater emphasis on patient safety, and the importance of early acquisition of complex clinical skills. Simulation-based assessment (SBA) is advancing to the point where it can revolutionize the way clinical competence is assessed in residency training programs. This article also discusses the design of simulation centers and the resources available for developing simulation programs in graduate EM education. The level of interest in these resources is evident by the numerous national EM organizations with internal working groups focusing on simulation. In the future, the health care system will likely follow the example of the airline industry, nuclear power plants, and the military, making rigorous simulation-based training and evaluation a routine part of education and practice.

Teaching approaches that reflect and promote professionalism

The teaching and cultivation of professionalism have long been part of medical education and have had recent special emphasis because professionalism has been identified as a core competency by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education. The author focuses on two complementary teaching initiatives that contribute to the development of professionalism in the academic environment: a resident-as-teacher program and an approach to faculty bedside teaching that mirrors and extends the lessons of the resident-as-teacher effort. These have been implemented and refined over the previous 15 years by the author and his colleagues at Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The commitment to the development and refinement of residents' teaching skills serves to promulgate the fundamental elements of professionalism, with emphasis on caring and the educational well-being of the team. The author describes the elements and benefits of these approaches and shows how they can foster the development of professionalism in graduate medical education.