As the new Obama Administration ponders the massive reforms needed to save the struggling U.S. healthcare system, a key challenge is the predicted shortage of physicians.
When the first Baby Boomers turn 65, the age of Medicare eligibility, on 1/1/11, the system will be hard-pressed to find adequate numbers of physicians to support their needs.
Innovations in distance learning could provide an alternative to traditional medical schools in increasing the number of practicing doctors to meet the needs of medically underserved areas and the increasing number of patients who will clog an already struggling system.
Back in 2001, the late Dr Eugene Stead, Jr. proposed that it was “time for accredited medical schools to establish distance learning curricula that would allow experienced community-bound health professionals, such as physician assistants (PAs) and nurse practitioners (NPs), to take medical school courses from home or at work” (Stead, 2001).
Dr Stead is known as the founder of the Physician Assistant profession, having created the country’s first formal education program for Physician Assistants at Duke University in 1965. He suggested that providing online courses for these “non traditional but seasoned healthcare professionals” would accelerate the time to achieve a full medical degree, while allowing the practitioners to remain in active practice.
In 2001, Stead asked “Which medical school will be the first to take the lead, which has the courage to explore alternative pathways to becoming a physician?”
Eight years later, those questions remain unanswered in the U.S. Of the 130 accredited M.D.-granting medical schools in the U.S., none yet offers a full online medical degree. However, there are some international programs emerging to offer four-year online medical degrees: “The International Virtual Medical School - IVIMEDS - is a worldwide partnership of leading edge medical schools and institutions, setting new standards in medical education and blending high quality e-learning and face-to-face learning in the training of health care professionals” (IVIMEDS, 2009).
Online medical education in the U.S. has made some strides, with many offerings for Continuing Medical Education (CME) courses that physicians are required to complete to maintain their licenses and board certifications. Harvard Medical School offers a wide range of “multimedia enriched, comprehensive, and interactive” online CME courses that have been taken by students from 105 countries (Harvard, 2009). They cost about $20 for each course hour, and topics range from clinical to administrative and legal issues.
Dr. Stead (who died in 2005 at the age of 97) would no doubt be pleased to learn that his long-time employer, Duke University in North Carolina has incorporated distance learning degree program technologies in traditional classroom courses. Anesthesiology students there are “using computer simulations to enhance their learning and decision-making processes before applying these to patients in the operating room” (Degree Board, 2008).
Many universities are taking advantage of Duke’s good example to offer a combination of technologies designed to help their students learn as effectively as possible.
See the next post on Duke School of Nursing’s Center for Nursing Discovery for an example of a world class institution using simulations and innovative state-of-the-art multi-media in online and classroom learning.
For more information:
Degree Board (2008). Campus-Based College Degree Programs offer Online Lessons . Retrieved online on March 9, 2009 at http://tinyurl.com/arqhbn
Duke University School of Nursing (2009). Center for Nursing Discovery. Retrieved online on March 9, 2009 at http://tinyurl.com/atxbu2
Harvard (2009) Harvard Medical School Department of Continuing Education. Retrieved from the Internet on March 9, 2009 at http://cmeonline.med.harvard.edu/
IVIMEDS (2009) International Virtual Medical School. Retrieved online on March 9, 2009 at http://www.ivimeds.org/
Stead, E. (2001). “Using Distance Learning to Provide a Medical Education to Non-traditional Students,” North Carolina Medical Journal, Vol 62, Number 6, 2001 retrieved from the Internet on March 9, 2009 at http://easteadjr.org/guest.html
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Hi Sheri,
ReplyDeleteI've been aware of the physician shortage and the "arrival" of the first baby boomers to that wonderful age of 65. There seems no doubt that medical schools will have to get on board sooner rather than later.
I can understand the hesitation of such a long honored tradition of medicine being taught at a traditional brick and mortar school. Some may fear that a doctor with an online degree is somehow not fully credentialed.
But as research is showing, the new media technologies available for teaching, such as simulations, interactive anatomical graphics, streaming video, and other multimedia software, are surpassing traditional lecture methods for effective teaching.
Perhaps a decade or two from now, I anticipate there will be fully online medical degrees (the residencies and actual hospital practice obviously have to be hands on...).
Thank you for your post--this is exciting stuff!! Diane