Doctors have a privileged position because we wear white coats and surgical scrubs, but this does not necessarily make us good teachers. To believe it does is both arrogant and egocentric, vestiges of a tradition where knowledge was dispensed solely from within the ivory towers of academia. I strongly believe in well-structured Train-the-Trainer or Faculty Development Programs, whose value in democratizing knowledge is now well documented. These programs help participants become better teachers, enhance their communication skills, practice using elements such as checklists or 4-box approach exercises in various settings, and become more familiar with educational philosophies and methodologies. 

Participants also learn to use validated modern assessment tools such as BSTAT, EBUS-STAT, BRadStat, RIGID-TASC, and for the pleura, tools such as ICC-STAT. The implementation of these tools into regional and national training programs helps teachers who don’t want to presume their students are merely capable of doing procedures based on subjective assessments of their students’ experience and exposure. Instead, by using competency-based assessment tools, modern teachers objectively measure their students’ technical skills for a specific set of procedures. They can identify weaknesses that require remedial training, as well as reinforce or improve upon skills already acquired.  This works for airline pilots and surgeons, so it is only natural for it to be equally valuable for interventional pulmonologists….imo.