As a result of its partnership with University of California, Irvine, UNE’s School of Rural Medicine is pioneering the use of iPads and portable ultrasound in undergraduate medical education in Australia.
UC Irvine’s School of Medicine was the first in the United States to introduce the use of iPads in the delivery of an undergraduate medical curriculum, and the first to train undergraduates in the use of portable, hand-held ultrasound units.
The international partnership has already linked students at UNE with UC Irvine’s cutting-edge medical training facilities in live, interactive training sessions via the internet. It is part of UNE’s strategy – through a range of innovative projects – to take full advantage of new opportunities offered by the National Broadband Network.
“The iPad will allow us to use the advantages of the internet and the NBN to deliver our undergraduate program to students when on placement in any part of the state, the nation, or the world,” Head of UNE’s School of Rural Medicine, Professor Peter McKeown said.
The leaders of both these teaching innovations at UC Irvine travelled to UNE late last week to participate in a symposium on the use of iPads and live Internet links in medical education, and an intensive course in the use of ultrasound as a diagnostic tool.
“I view this as an opportunity to transform medical education,” said Assistant Professor Warren Wiechmann, Faculty Director of Instructional Technologies in the UC Irvine School of Medicine, talking about the use of iPads and live Internet links. And Professor Christian Fox, UC Irvine’s Director of Instructional Ultrasound, said: “As physicians we owe it to our patients to use any tool that can help us make a more timely and accurate diagnosis.”
Participants in the two-day ultrasound course (Friday and Saturday, February 17 and 18) included GPs, emergency room and critical care specialists, and students.
The symposium on Friday, February 17 about the use of the Internet (“iMedEd”) and iPads in the delivery of medical curricula was joined – via the Internet – by medical educators at universities in Argentina, Malaysia, the UK and the United States as well as in Australia.
