Residents as teachers: a process for training and development.

Of the many roles that residents fill, an important one is that of teacher. Residents spend many hours teaching a variety of learners-peers, patients, medical students, the general public-in a range of environments, from the bedside and clinic, to the OR, conference room and lecture hall. Such diverse audiences and surroundings almost command the use of a wide array of teaching strategies appropriate both to the setting and to the learner. This paper addresses how residents can learn to be effective teachers without taxing an already-overloaded schedule. This focus is on the process of developing a learning format that is appropriate to any given discipline by means of a partnership among an educator, a faculty member and residents from within a discipline. A brief review of the educational literature provides the basis on which are built actual teaching strategies for teaching residents to be teachers.