Technology in Physician Education

Abstract

How physicians are trained has been heavily influenced by the advent of the technology era. Technology has progressed faster than society has been able to integrate it. The same is true within schools of medicine and residency training programs. Many technological advances are available to medical educators, and the goal is to make educators aware of the possible educational tools. Traditionally, medicine has been a learn-by-doing discipline. This is becoming less and less acceptable in modern society, and new training methods are being sought, developed and implemented. Some of the modalities available to medical educators include intranet, hand-helds, virtual reality, computerized charting, computerized access to information and electronic monitoring student education. Technological advances in medical education have their uses, but there are also many drawbacks, including hardware limitations, computer failure, security issues, patient confidentiality issues, property rights, maintenance and poor attitude of those required to implement new learning systems.