Enhancing the educational interaction in family medicine registrar training in the clinical context

The relationship between registrar and trainer functions best when the trainer consciously facilitates the registrar's learning and considers all their interactions as educational opportunities. The trainer's role is more that of an educational guide and less that of an authoritarian expert. Both the registrar and the trainer should be aware of their own learning styles and how these may be complementary or contradictory. A variety of conversations with different purposes should be structured and planned and not left to chance and a number of methods for observing and collecting the registrar's clinical experience should be developed and used regularly. Further attention needs to be paid to the development of useful, reliable and valid portfolios.