In cooperation with four hospital departments, the Norwegian Medical Association piloted a method for combining internal and external evaluation of the departments' educational programmes for residents. The aim was to improve the quality of education in the departments. The ophthalmologic departments at two university hospitals and two pediatric departments at local hospitals have participated in the project. Written reports describing internal and external evaluations, based on reciprocal visits by representatives of the different departments have served as guidelines for improvement. The evaluation revealed inadequate opportunities for resident education in all the participating departments. The interesting and positive experiences were that, despite these findings, the reciprocal evaluations seemed to encourage and inspire the departments that were evaluated to develop better educational programmes for their residents. This paper shows the advantages reciprocal evaluation seems to have as a supplementary method for quality improvement in departments that educate residents.