In 2015, Medical Science Educator introduced “journal sections” on a specific topic. These thematic sections are the successor of the special issues that were published annually in the years before. The content for the thematic sections is solicited by a special call for manuscripts. This year we are publishing a special journal section dedicated to the topic of “Health Science Students as Future Educators: How to Support and Encourage Them”.

In this section, the journal explores initiatives from around the world to motivate students to become future educators. During their careers as physicians or biomedical science researchers, many will at some point in time get involved in teaching health sciences students. Still, most students graduate without formal training in education. In some schools students can voluntarily get involved in educational activities such as peer teaching, educational committees, and education projects, while in other places mandatory student-as-teacher programs are being offered to teach students the principles of classroom and small-group teaching techniques, and to introduce them to health sciences education scholarship.

In response to the call the journal received over 70 submissions for this special journal section, which clearly indicates that the topic is of great interest to many. In this issue of Medical Science Educator, I present to you the first 20 published manuscripts, a few more are still in the review and revision process and will be published in one of the upcoming regular journal issues. I hope that the articles in this section will be of interest to you and that they will be an inspiration for medical education leaders to offer their students opportunities to develop themselves as future educators in the field of health sciences education.

Peter GM de Jong, PhD

Editor-in-Chief