Medical Education

Distributed medical education is similar to other forms of education in which distance is involved. It is a simple concept, in which geographical separation (distance) between the teaching expert and students is bridged by means of advanced telecommunications and information technologies that ensure distribution of expert knowledge to a large and widely distributed audience. Although the standard notion of distributed education ensures that “the teacher is brought to the class,” it does not provide for the hospital ward to be brought along. Distributed medical education attempts to furnish the solution to this essential issue.

Contrary to many other aspects of distributed education—for example, business, law, engineering, and art—medical training imposes several practical difficulties that must be overcome for such training to become effective. Since its beginning, ...