Meeting the challenge: Teaching psychotherapy to medical students

SUMMARY

In order to improve the quality of their teaching to medical students, the staff of an NHS psychotherapy department engaged a professional teacher to demonstrate how teaching could be delivered more effectively and in a way which would help the students to learn and would engage their interest. This paper outlines the structure which the educationist suggested for the teaching, with particular emphasis on the need for the teacher to plan ahead and to organise both the content and methods of individual sessions and the course as a whole. Creating a coherent structure gives the students firm boundaries within which to think and reflect on what they are learning. The psychotherapists have found this input from an educationist invaluable, and the student teaching has improved markedly.