As far as surgical education is concerned, we are familiar with the traditional method of training, where the trainees will be guided by an experienced professional surgical specialist.
In this mode of learning, the trainees will learn as much as their trainer will ask them to do. The transfer of knowledge from the trainer to the trainee will be limited due to the following few factors:
- Number of instructions given by the expert trainer
- Personal circumstances of the trainee
- Potential unconscious biases
- Individual learning capacity of the trainee.
What is e-learning in surgical education?
Today’s modern technology has influenced the medical education field as well. Webop.com is now offering a platform for medical students for learning the following types of surgery procedures:
- General
- Visceral
- Transplant
- Vascular
- Thoracic
- Endocrine.
This is a revolutionary change in the way the trainee will learn their profession.
What are the benefits of surgical e-learning?
Let us discuss the benefits of surgery in the e-learning way which will offer more convenience as compared to the traditional way of learning surgical procedures.
1. More easily accessible
The internet is easily available these days and hence the trainee can have access to the training material much more easily as compared to the traditional method of training.
This course can be made available on different platforms and can easily be accessed both at the work place as well as home.
2. Available in several forms
Online e-learning can be made available in several forms that can easily be adapted to suit the requirement for certain specific learning environment as well as trainees. These may include:
- Web-based data resources
- Interactive online modules
- Virtual reality environment
- Virtual patients
3. Can reduce the study budget of the trainee
The impact of this kind of e-learning can increase the workload of trainees and also reduce study budgets. The course will be regularly updated based on new evidence of best practices.
All these can benefit surgical trainees and their professional development is going to be much more. Especially this is true within oncology and oncological surgery, which is constantly evolving.
4. Offers a new way of learning faster
E-learning can offer new evidence for the trainee and they can apply their learning in a safe setting. This is a much better option as compared to reading textbooks, which may take much longer to get printed.
5. Learning can be discussed on many platforms
E-learning offers scope to discuss the new knowledge in many different online platforms and social media and many others can contribute to enhancing the knowledge.
6. Trainees can learn different aspects of surgery
Because of interactive learning, surgical trainees can get access to information that was very much restricted otherwise.
In this new setting, trainees are able to work through different aspects of the subject from
- Presentation
- Investigation
- Surgical treatment plans.
Conclusion
Training on surgery is a very complicated learning and the quality of training will depend both on the trainer as well as the trainee. The transfer of knowledge will be restricted. However, with the introduction of e-learning now the whole concept can be discussed openly on different platforms, which can certainly increase the scope of learning.
