Boost For Successful Interactive Medical Education

Monday January 29, 2007

Funding Boost For Successful Interactive Medical Education

An interactive medical education computer programme for patients, doctors and students has been given a major boost following an additional $400,000 grant to the University of Otago’s Christchurch School of Medicine and Health Sciences.

Associate Professor Murray Barclay and Professor Evan Begg from the Department of Clinical Pharmacology have received the grant to further develop interactive graphics learning tools for medical education, which will also help patients to better understand their conditions. Being web-based, the software will also allow distance learning world-wide, including from home.

Professor Barclay says this project will increase the speed, depth and enjoyment of medical learning, while potentially reducing the cost of education and increasing the capacity for distance learning.

“We have already demonstrated with our pilot that interactive graphics has tremendous potential in medical education as it enables the students to understand medical concepts and scenarios in the body in a very visual way, “he says.

“It’s a very exciting and powerful supplementary learning tool to enable understanding of physiological processes which previously have only been described in words or with static pictures. With interactive graphics the student and patient can see on screen what’s going on in the body; and what happens when they alter some of the processes.”

The funding boost is part of $9.7 million recently granted by the Tertiary Education Commission for innovation in education, to enhance the quality of learning in this sector, and contribute to NZ’s development.

The programme will allow students to use 2D and 3D graphics for self-paced learning, and to physically interact with teaching material to gain further understanding. The pilot website (www.icp.org.nz) has been developed in association with the University of Canterbury’s Human Interface Technology Laboratory (HIT Lab NZ), and the Department of Clinical Pharmacology at the University of Otago, Christchurch. New collaborators now include Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan,China and the University of Auckland Medical School.

The pilot website is now used extensively in a number of countries and has received excellent feedback from around the world. It has also received positive reviews by leading medical publications such as the British Medical Journal.

The material has also been adapted for use on PDAs to enable fully mobile access for busy doctors.

“Since we launched the pilot site we’ve had strong interest from other medical specialties that are keen to develop interactive graphics and learning materials for their areas,“ says Associate Professor Barclay. “This latest round of funding from the government will facilitate development of the successful approach launched in Clinical Pharmacology.”

ENDS

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