Practical ways to identify your learning and service needs as part of the documentation of your competence and performance as a clinician and a teacher

Doctors ‘must be committed to lifelong learning and be responsible for maintaining the medical knowledge and clinical and team skills necessary for the provision of quality care’. Process audits focus on what happens with the learner: for instance, teaching programmes and tutorial strategy. Audits of outcomes consider the impact of teaching on the learner and might include learner satisfaction or improvements in service provision of the learner as healthcare provider. Part of meeting the criteria for relationships with patients in Good Medical Practice might be to assess patients’ or learners’ satisfaction with: their role or involvement in teaching. In teaching there are increasing numbers of postgraduate programmes in teaching practice such as Masters in Medical Education awards and ‘teaching the teachers’ courses. The trainers’ workshop for example is a good place to share ideas and listen to what other teachers are up to.