Author: Brian S McGowan, PhD

Physicians assistants are highly paid medical professionals who provide a lot of the same healthcare services that doctors do. They take patient histories and perform physical exams, diagnose illnesses and develop treatment plans, prescribe medications and counsel patients. And in surgical settings, they suture wounds and assist with the procedures.

PAs, as they’re known in the industry, typically earn master’s degrees in medical science before practicing. These programs usually last three academic years and include classroom instruction in topics ranging from anatomy to pharmacology. Students also participate in more than 2,000 hours of clinical rotations. This training entails a lot of rigorous coursework—education that would, in theory, be hard to deliver outside the brick-and-mortar walls of the 175 or so higher-education institutions with accredited PA master’s programs.

Or maybe not. Soon, an aspiring PA might be able to complete nearly all this coursework online—and through an Ivy League to boot: Yale.

via Learning How to Practice Medicine—Virtually – The Atlantic.

E-learning now accounts for a substantial proportion of medical education provision. This progress has required significant investment and this investment has in turn come under increasing scrutiny so that the costs of e-learning may be controlled and its returns maximised. There are multiple methods by which the costs of e-learning can be controlled and its returns maximised. This short paper reviews some of those methods that are likely to be most effective and that are likely to save costs without compromising quality. Methods might include accessing free or low-cost resources from elsewhere; create short learning resources that will work on multiple devices; using open source platforms to host content; using in-house faculty to create content; sharing resources between institutions; and promoting resources to ensure high usage. Whatever methods are used to control costs or increase value, it is most important to evaluate the impact of these methods.

via E-learning: controlling costs and increasing value. – PubMed – NCBI.

IMPORTANCE:
Dermoscopy permits the detection of early-stage melanomas but is difficult to learn. It is important to develop effective teaching methods. Spaced education is a methodology within the field of adaptive learning that uses online tools to reinforce long-term retention.
OBJECTIVES:
To determine whether a spaced education dermoscopy module improved dermoscopy skills in the continuing medical education setting and to evaluate participant satisfaction.
DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS:
We designed a prospective controlled study with 2 sequential cohorts of participants enrolled between September 2010 and September 2013, in the continuing medical education dermoscopy program of the Claude Bernard-Lyon 1 University in Lyon, France. Participants enrolled in this program were either certified dermatologists or senior dermatology residents. The control group (n = 95) comprised all participants enrolled during the 2 first years of the study (49 participants in the class of 2010, 46 in the class of 2011). The intervention group (n = 96) comprised all participants enrolled during the third and fourth years of the study (46 in the class of 2012; 50 in the class of 2013).
INTERVENTIONS:
All participants attended a 3-day lecture followed by small-group tutorials 4 months later. Each participant also attended a day of consultation with a dermoscopy specialist. In addition, participants in the intervention group were enrolled in an e-learning spaced education dermoscopy program.
MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES:
The main outcome measure was mean participant scores at the posttest evaluation, which was conducted 4 months after course enrollment.
RESULTS:
The intervention group had better results at the posttest, with a mean (SD) score (out of a possible 160.0 points) of 148.1 (5.8) (n = 82 participants) vs 145.7 (7.7) (n = 90 participants) in the control group (P = .02). Ninety-two percent of the participants (80 of 87) were extremely or very satisfied with the e-learning module. Participant engagement was high, with an average of 85% of participants (80 of 94) “on track” at any given time of the year.
CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE:
Our study shows that, in the context of continuing medical education, a spaced education Internet dermoscopy module combined with in-class training increases participant performances in dermoscopy. It is easy to use and adaptable to professional working schedules.

via Enhancement of Customary Dermoscopy Education With Spaced Education e-Learning: A Prospective Controlled Trial. – PubMed – NCBI.