Purpose of review: Patient safety is topical today. Competent professionals are necessary to keep anesthesia care safe, and teaching trainees is an important element in safety work. The purpose of this review is to present the latest research on anesthesia training and trainees. Recent findings: Most trainees of today aim for excellence, for which personal qualities are as important as knowledge and skills. The definition of excellence is the first subject covered here. Trainees of today can train many procedural skills in a simulators setting, a step forward for patient safety. Several studies about simulator training are reported. A dimension of competence that has received much attention during the last years is anesthesiologists' nontechnical skills. Studies on anesthesiologists' nontechnical skills as a valuable tool for assessing trainees' progress in nontechnical skills are presented. Summary: Much research about anesthesia training concerns simulator training and assessment of trainees' competence. More research is needed to understand the process of learning anesthesia.