[Supervision as quality assurance--examplified on the continuous education in psychiatry].

Regular supervision is now compulsory for all medical specialties. This provides a good opportunity to follow the interns through their entire period of specialization, and could therefore be a good tool for quality assurance. If supervision is to function as quality assurance, firm frameworks will have to be established. The content must cover learning of practical skills and improve possibilities for reflection about one's own work and about ethical choices. The supervisor must be competent to understand the supervision as a pedagogic process, not only as an extension of knowledge nor as a purely control function. The supervisor must be open to mutual evaluation and take the responsibility to evaluate the intern's fitness for the specialty. The psychiatric specialist education is used as an example of the different aspects of supervision.