[Effective didactic skills training for teachers in continuing medical education]

To develop, test, evaluate and implement effective state-of-the-art teacher training in didactic skills and methods. The training concept should be designed and beneficial for medical teachers' postgraduate medical education (CME).

A 5-day workshop with 12 theoretical and 9 "hands-on" modules was designed and stepwise improved, according to the trainees' feedback. All trainees were trained in small groups (6 to 10 participants per workshop). The workshops consisted of mini-lectures, repeated micro teaching exercises and video-supported feedback concerning the following key-competencies: Communication of goals; methods to trigger interactivity; design of slides in power point presentations; effective feedback-techniques; and use of media, time-management, skills teaching, assessment methods (e. g. OSCE and others), evaluation and general presentation skills. The evaluation was based on two components: A) trainees' scores in two objective structured teaching exercises (OSTEs) at the beginning and end of workshop, with the ratings of 15 to 20 external observers checked for significant trends (Pearson's X2 test) in 17 given criteria for high teaching effectiveness; B) the trainees rated 20 teaching competencies in a retrospective "pre-post-analysis" (self-assessment questionnaire) at the end of each workshop and after 6 to 12 months later.

The results revealed highly significant (p < 0.01) improvements in 13 of 16 OSTE-criteria and in 12 of 13 items of the pre-post-analysis, predominantly estimated to be "persistent." Overall, trainees; feedback has been highly encouraging to continue and broaden the program. The discussion covers potential factors for the training success as well as pitfalls and the controversial issue of fees.

The designed 5-day training workshops to enhance didactic skills and teaching methods turned out to be highly effective and can be attended by all medical teachers with different teaching backgrounds and specialties. The training has been certified for CME-credits by the Academy of the Physicians' State Association of North Rhine-Westphalia.