ABSTRACT
Constructive use of time spent in quality training is important in answering the question of what is effective postgraduate medical education. The content of training programmes and, crucially, how the content is delivered, learnt and assessed are important determinants of cost effectiveness. In the competency framework, trainees constructively use their experience to develop expertise by reflecting on and further developing their performance in practice. Cost-effective training can only be delivered by appropriately resourced and developed training staff. Training and developing the teaching instinct in trainers, both medical and nonmedical, will be important in determining cost effectiveness. The cost of freeing up more consultants’ time away from patient care into providing structured education and assessment activities with trainees is another financial outlay. Cost-effective medical education relies on being able to measure the expense of training a doctor against the quality of the finished product and to thereby determine whether the resources put into that training process have been justified.
