Online Courses

It is well known that “International Virtual Medical School” was built by the worldwide group of medical schools. The purpose of this organization is to allow students to begin study, through physician online courses, toward a medical degree thousands of miles from a classroom. The virtual physician online courses, known by the acronym IVIMEDS, is based at the University of Dundee in Scotland, but is actually an international collaborative comprised of over 50 institutions in 16 countries. Many of the participating physician online courses are in the United Kingdom; other contributing online physician courses are located in Portugal, Italy, Singapore, Israel, and Saudi Arabia.

The goal of the physician online courses program is to replace the traditional lecture-and-textbook approach of medical school. Supporters of this approach also see broader potential in long-distance physician courses education. Online physician courses would help the doctors from poor communities to practice medicine at home. Physician courses online are designed specially for such doctors with the purpose of staying them where they are really needed and not relocate them for four years.

The physician online courses program is based on the concept of a “virtual practice”, where the computer presents students with patients to treat. For example, a video patient may appear in the online physician course complaining that his leg hurts. He believes it started when he was jabbed in the leg with old rusty nail while mending his fence. First aid, that he needs, is a tetanus shot and antibiotics, but the next week he comes back again complaining about the worsening state of his farm and wondering if his family would be better off without him. The first task of the student now is to examine the man for depression. When the student presents the diagnoses, the physician courses computer program will provide some automated feedback and direct the students to background reading. Faculty will also closely monitor students' physician online courses performance. Students and teachers will interact over email or on discussion boards, and at some point in the online courses program students may be required to volunteer in local clinics or hospitals.

The online physician courses plan is for students to be able to finish their first two years of medical school by completing a series of computer-based assignments of physician online courses as well as some hands-on work at local institutions. Then, like all medical students, they would finish their degrees by spending two years doing hands-on clinical work in a teaching hospital.