Residents' perceptions of the ideal clinical teacher--a qualitative study.

Objective: The object of this study was to establish what residents in 1994 and 2003 characterised as an ideal clinical teacher and whether differences existed between residents' views in 1994 and 2003.

Setting: postgraduate medical education in the Netherlands.

Subjects: 207 obstetric-gynaecologic residents.

Intervention: open-ended questionnaire.

Analysis: qualitative data analysis with two coding dictionaries based on current literature. Differences between 1994 and 2003 were estimated using the Chi-square test.

Results: Residents preferred the 'person' role both in 1994 (42%) and in 2003 (48%). The 'physician' role was significantly more important in 1994 than in 2003; the 'supervisor' role was significantly more important in 2003 than in 1994 (p<0.05). Seventy percent of the comments related to 'direct interaction' (i.e., between residents and clinical teachers), 30% to 'indirect interaction' (i.e., clinical teachers' behaviour affecting residents indirectly).

Conclusion: The data showed that almost half of residents' comments described 'person' role characteristics. There was a significant shift in the role ranked second, from the physician role in 1994 to the supervisor role in 2003. The findings highlighted that teachers, in order to be perceived as ideal, should adapt their behaviour to residents' learning needs.