Aural ventilation tube insertion is the most common otological operation and is usually the first operation learnt by trainees. The limited supply of temporal bones as well as expensive commercial models hampers training in the procedure. This paper describes a simple solution making a model of the ear canal and drum out of materials available on an ENT ward.

A simple and inexpensive simulator to assist in the teaching of tonsillectomy is presented.

Although many reports can be found in the literature about temporal bone holders for postgraduate temporal bone surgery courses, the author did not find any kind of suitable description of a larynx holder for laryngomicrosurgery courses. A cadaver larynx holder is presented, made by the author himself for individual and postgraduate teaching courses. This simple model has been proved already to be a unique and a very useful tool for a practising course on laryngomicrosurgery during two training courses and the instructional session of the IIIrd EUFOS Congress in Hungary in 1996.

A study to investigate the value and reliability of clinical photographs as teaching aids was undertaken. Twenty colour photographs were taken using the StarMed video-otoscopic system. The pictures, which were a mixture of normal and abnormal ears, were shown to 21 experienced otolaryngologists from the UK and Canada. These clinicians were asked to identify the abnormality if any.

The median score for correctly identified pictures was 15 (range 12–18). This score was identical for both the UK and Canadian subgroups. Although the abnormalities were consistently well recognized with an average correct identification rate of 90 per cent (range 67–100 per cent), the ‘normals’ were recognized significantly less well at only 41 per cent (range 5–71 per cent) (chi-squared = 110.6; 1 df; p<0.001).

This result is probably due to failure of the camera to capture the huge variation and subtleties in the range of normal, and the clinicians' natural inclination to identify pathology, when in doubt. We would conclude that as long as this failing is recognized, clinical photographs, and specifically those from the video-otoscope, represent a useful and reliable teaching tool.