Both teachers and students play important but different roles in medical education. Despite their different roles, it is important for teachers and students to cooperate and share experiences, because in that way they can help to improve the design and implementation of medical education programmes. In the next five contributions students from the Netherlands, Flanders, Germany, Switzerland and Austria describe their experiences with medical education programmes in their respective countries. As students are the ‘consumers’ of medical education, their opinions should be valued and careful attention should be paid to them.