Twelve tips for setting up an ambulatory care (outpatient) teaching centre.

The ambulatory care setting is becoming an increasingly important environment for clinical teaching. This reflects the changing focus of healthcare delivery with more procedures and patient treatment being delivered in this setting. Maximizing learning opportunities for students without compromising patient care has never provided a greater challenge.

Using the Ambulatory Care Teaching Centre to develop opportunities for integrated learning.

An Ambulatory Care Teaching Centre (ACTC) has provided an opportunity to develop an integrated teaching programme in a supervised environment which links students' initial clinical experiences in the skills centre with patient-contact in other teaching settings. Second-year students attended 2-h sessions in the ACTC during each block of a systems-based course. Two 'system-sensitive' patients invited from a patient bank enabled students to develop clinical skills previously practised on mannequins and simulated patients and to integrate theoretical material with clinical practice.