[Providing successful education and further training: 10 tips].

Almost all physicians teach or provide postgraduate medical education from time to time. Although many people assume that there are 'born teachers' and 'those who will never learn to teach', teaching is an ability. The knowledge and skills required to teach well can be learned and practised.

Integrating continuing medical education and faculty development into a single course: effects on participants' behaviour.

Background: Integrating continuing medical education (CME) and faculty development (FD) into a single course can save time for physicians with teaching responsibilities. However, little is known about the effectiveness of integrated courses.

Aim: To determine if there are differences in effectiveness between the CME and FD items as they were integrated in one course.

[The mini-clinical evaluation exercise: from 'judgement' to 'guidance'].

The mini-clinical evaluation exercise (mini-CEX) is a sort of test in which the assessor's evaluation is based on a short observation of the resident in a clinical situation. A mini-CEX is not an examination but a useful educational instrument to monitor and to foster the resident's development. The central concepts of a good mini-CEX are 'short' (limited both in content and duration) and 'often' (the more frequent the better).

Opportunities for the CTEI: disentangling frequency and quality in evaluating teaching behaviours.

Students' perceptions of teaching quality are vital for quality assurance purposes. An increasingly used, department-independent instrument is the (Cleveland) clinical teaching effectiveness instrument (CTEI). Although the CTEI was developed carefully and its validity and reliability confirmed, we noted an opportunity for improvement given an intermingling in its rating scales: the labels of the answering scales refer to both frequency and quality of teaching behaviours.

[Supervising students according to the STAMPPOT method: efficient integration of patient care and clinical teaching].

During the supervision of a registrar or house officer who has taken the history from a patient and has performed a physical examination, optimal patient care and education should be integrated. The 'One-Minute Preceptor Method' has already been described as a method that is suitable for this task. We have expanded on this method.