It is generally assumed that upon completion of residency training, all physicians are competent medical educators. This is but one fallacy in our system of medical education, which is unfortunately but vividly demonstrated to medical students on an annual basis. Other cherished but unproven tenets that merit consideration include: “see one, do one, teach one”; “intimidation stimulates learning”; “the more data that is presented, the more that is learned”; “it doesn’t matter how you teach, good students learn and poor students don’t”; “lectures are an outdated teaching method”.

This course is designed to help junior faculty, fellows, and senior residents, who care about teaching, to become effective and engaging medical educators. While primarily focusing on undergraduate medical education, it will address some of the philosophy, principles, and practices for optimization of pathology resident training, interdepartmental conferences and research presentations. A short segment will focus on the creation, critique, and refinement of examination questions. During the final hour, an opportunity will be presented for more experienced pathologist educators to discuss strategies that work and those that fail, as well as considering the educational challenges of this decade (student expectations, identification of appropriate learning objectives in pathology for medical students, the use of virtual images rather than microscopes, and the extensive use of computer based learning). Although taught largely using a lecture format, there will be extensive participation and interaction of the attendees with the course director and with one another. A survey will be mailed to pre-registrants. Survey information mailed to Dr. Zaino in advance will be included in the discussion at the course. A handout will be distributed at the course, and all of the course material will be mailed after completion of the course. Early registration for this course is recommended since enrollment will be limited.