Apr 13, 2007

Are Doctors Prepared to Used the Web 2.0 ?


This is an update of the presentation of Ves Dimov about Web 2.0 and Medicine. In my opinion one of the biggest problem we face is the fact that most of us still do not realize, that we have to learn about internet and how to use it, that medicine and computer literacy are necessary to continue our education by ourselves. Even when we are far from big cities or we are working in rural places, or even when we are in transition to get a job or to get into a residency program, we can continue with our education, since the time we enter to medical school, or even before, we know that our profession will never end, that we will face one and thousand tests the rest of our lives, and this is a time when the best doctors can be found anywhere, not only in the big cities or in the big hospitals, to become one of them, we have to work hard, and we have to change the idea the most of us have about traditional medical education.
I made a small search into the curriculum of some medical schools of the United States, but I didn't find computer literacy skill courses as part of the formal education of a student who will become a doctor receive, some of them just have some elective courses or some seminars to learn how to use the internet and how to select information and evaluate resources of knowledge. But what can we expect when our teachers don't understand what we are talking about, when most of our colleges do not show interest to development new skills. Most of the people who is working and using these tools that internet offers, learned everything about internet by themselves, they spent time and energy to understand about Blogs, RSS, Podcast, Videocast, Wikis, Medical Search, Content Sharing sites, Online communities, companies, e-books, online writing, and many things more, but what about the rest of us, I have been trying to teach others about this tools, and the basics of internet, and I have realized that sometimes people can not differentiate between a browser, a search engine or an operative system. I know that anybody you explain how the web can be used is going to tell you that it is amazing, but even in these cases they are not going to use it. And the reason of why not, results simple, we are not prepared to use these technologies, it is too "complicated" yet. I analize it, and think that it will take some time yet, until each one of us can use the internet as the powerful tool it is.
We have lot of things to learn, this is the curve of learning we have to pass, just at that point of learning, we will take advantage of the main purpose of internet that is COLLABORATION. We the people who likes both Medicine and Internet are working hard to get this goal, but definitively it will take time, even when the tools already exists.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Thank you for leaving a comment