Use of telemedicine in undergraduate teaching of surgery

Telemedicine as an undergraduate teaching method was evaluated by exposing medical students to outpatient videoconferencing. Forty clinical students o n a 10-week surgical rotation participated in the study. Telemedicine sessi ons involved videoconferencing from the general surgical outpatient departm ent located in a sister hospital 8 km away, using a roll-about system conne cted by ISDN at 384 kbit/s. A questionnaire was used to assess the quality of time spent and educational information obtained by the students. On a sc ale of 0-10, the students gave an overall rating of 9.7 for outpatient teac hing using telemedicine. All 40 students indicated a willingness to return for similar teaching sessions. Even though the results were encouraging, an objective assessment of the knowledge gained by the students is required b efore the inclusion of this teaching technique in an existing medical curri culum can be recommended unequivocally.