The cost of teaching an intern in New South Wales.

Objective: To determine the cost of formal and informal teaching specifically provided for interns and to determine how much of an intern's time is spent in these activities.

Design, Setting And Participants: Costs of formal teaching for 2012 were obtained from the New South Wales Health Education and Training Institute (HETI) and costs of informal teaching by a survey of all interns in a random sample of prevocational networks.

Main Outcome Measures: The cost of formal intern education provided by HETI; the number of hours of formal teaching provided to interns in hospital; intern estimates of the amount of non-timetabled teaching received in a typical week.

Results: The cost of formal teaching was $11 892 per intern per year and the cost of informal teaching was $2965 per intern per year (survey response rate, 63%) - a total of $14 857. Interns spent 2 hours per week in formal teaching and 28 minutes per week in informal teaching, representing 6.2% of a 40-hour week.

Conclusion: The time of professionals paid by NSW Health represents most of the expenditure on teaching interns. An increase in time spent on intern teaching beyond the current 6.2% of an intern's 40-hour week would be an investment in better health care.