E-patients will shape the future of medicine: Slideshow
Here is the slideshow I presented at the AcuteZorg.nl Health 2.0 event in Nijmegen, The Netherlands on the 24th of March, 2009.
Posts from the ‘Medical Education Evolution’ Category
Feb 8
Medical Education in 2009
How should medical education change in 2009? Unfortunately, I don’t have the answer but am trying to find sites and projects that could probably answer the question soon.
First, I will re-launch my university credit course focusing on web 2.0 and medicine in 2 weeks. I will also publish all the slideshows and try to persuade students to participate actively in this movement. I hope I can generate some discussions about how to reform medical education with this initiative.
Second, according to a Medscape article we will see a few changes in the near future at least in medical publishing:
Why is it, then, that medical publishers can retain copyright and limit access? Recently, pressure from proponents of the open-access concept has resulted in the emergence of some open-access publication models. For example, several publishers now allow full-text access after a defined period of time, such as 1 year after publication. Should physicians and their patients have to wait 1 year before access to important medical advances? I think not.
We need leadership to push for immediate, full-text access to all clinical literature and we need that leadership now. To paraphrase a mentor, “Knowledge [should] be in the domain of the seeker.”
Third, the Medical Education Evolution project is still active and looking for contributors. If you have a great educational site in mind, please add it here.
Fourth, the Meducation site can provide you with some great resources on medical education.
Fifth, you should also check out the Medical Education wiki.
Further reading:
Dec 31
Medical Education Evolution: Looking forward to 2009!
This July, Jen McCabe Gorman, Ted Eytan, and me created a Ning community for those who are interested in changing medical education. We’re working on a new concept and plan to find a medical school that would use it. Feel free to join us and let us know your thoughts.
The community now has 95 members and 22 ongoing discussions.
As some of us organize university courses about medicine 2.0 or health 2.0 (e.g. my course in Debrecen) and as the Google Document containing the database of useful medical links is still growing, I can’t wait to see the results in 2009. This document features now almost a hundred sites, services and projects. Include your favourite websites!
I hope we can build a concept on how to reform medical education worldwide with the tools of web 2.0.
Let’s work even harder for a better education in 2009 (as Sir Ken Robinson described):
Further reading:
Aug 6
Do you think medical education can be reformed? How?
This is a question I asked on the Medical Education Evolution community page. Here are some interesting answers from famous educators and medical professionals:
- Yes. Content + continuous holistic approach to whole medical education from the very first study day + teaching/learning methods + diverse and complex use of ICT as a tool + networking. To decrease – memorization, to increase – independence learning methods. Key starting point – to educate teachers (digital immigrants) of medical students (digital natives) “how to teach” (new methodology, didactic, sociology, psychology of new teaching/learning) and to shift them to the higher level of thinking and understanding of new generation approach to information and ICT. New role of teacher = partner of students + lifelong learner + facilitator/moderator of medical education. (Dusan Mesko)
- Yes, I think most institutions can be reformed. A few ideas that I think could help would include (but not be limited to):
1. Collaboration among those with diverse expertise
2. Appropriate use of technologies (e.g., technological, social) to connect people, harvest ideas, create impetus for change
3. Change-positive educational structures (Jillian M. Ketterer)
- 1. Actively involve students physically and mentally in learning
2. Increase clinical sciences in year 1&2
3. Increase the use of interactive technology. (Deirdre Bonnycastle)
- Medical education is in a constant state of reform. Over the past 20-30 years we have seen the rise of problem-based learning and now are witnessing the first wave of e-learning and the use of web 2.0 tools to encourage collaboration. (Dean Giustini)
- Yes, through competent and visionary leadership, open mindedness towards the best practices worldwide, mentality change, and evolving from a model of rote learning and knowledge transmission to one of competency based learning. Medical education fails if we know everything about one very rare disease, but don’t know how to take a proper history, how to reason and integrate knowledge and emotions, and to be proficient in basic procedural skills.
The top countries in medical education must work closely with the less advanced ones in exporting best practices and fostering adoptions towards the latter, while allowing them to develop their own research and expertise. (Tiago Villanueva)
- Absolutely. I think an important place to start is at the level of the mission of medical education, which is ultimately to support patients’ health, so really in a basic way, starting to change the philosophy to being patient-centered instead of faculty-centered, research-centered, academia-centered (all these things are important and necessary, but they are supports for improving the health of patients, families, communities) (Ted Eytan)
Others think differently:
- Yes. Very carefully. You wouldn’t want to step on those tenured PhD’s toes
(Steve Murphy)
- Yes. Neutron bombs. (David Masuda)
Further reading:
Aug 4
Medical Education Evolution: A Growing Community
Some weeks ago, we launched the Medical Education Evolution project which aims to connect the tools of medicine 2.0 to traditional medical education. Now we have about 40 members and there are several active discussions about different aspects of the problem.
- First, we have to decide how to implement web 2.0 tools into the educational system.
- Second, we have to create a database of interesting and useful tools and websites.
- Third, we have to analyze whether it is useful for students or not.
If you think you have visions and ideas about how to change medical education, please join us and tell us your opinion.
You should also check out the wiki Deirdre Bonnycastle just created.
Jul 1
Medical Education Evolution: Time for a change
I just finished my last exams so now I’m officially in the last year of medical school. I believe I know exactly the problems of medical education as there are some of them even at the best universities. I believe medical education is still traditional while medicine is not traditional any more.
Do you think today’s residents and physicians can answer the questions of e-patients? I know, medicine will never be an online service but there will be more and more e-patients who would like to contact their doctors through e-mail or Skype and would like to get some relevant/useful resources where they can find more information about their medical condition. Do you think today’s physicians can help these patients?
If we do not change medical education, there will be a strange situation: e-patients will know more about e-health than medical professionals. How could they help them that way?
I believe medical education is not ready for the 21st century and there are just a few good initiatives (one example). It’s not about changing the whole concept of medical education, but we have to implement the tools of medicine 2.0 into all the medical curriculums. We came up with an idea regarding how to achieve this:
Jen McCabe Gorman, Ted Eytan, and me created a Ning community for those who are interested in changing medical education. We’re working on a new concept and plan to find a medical school that would use it. Feel free to join us and let us know your thoughts.
Don’t forget to check Jen’s wonderful post about it.
