Perspectives for Computers and Medical Education

Abstract

During the past two decades computer-assisted instruction (CAI) has evolved from tutoring systems, which facilitate the acquisition of academic knowledge to simulation systems, which intend to develop the experience knowledge by presenting artificial cases to the student for discussion and management. Those two generations have largely benefited from the development of micro-computers, hypermedia and artificial intelligence techniques. They represent the standard of current CAI. But they are still at a distance of the ultimate goal of medicine, which is to improve the patient’s condition. Bringing CAI at the patient side (i.e., in the physician’s office or at the bed side) opens the way for a third generation of CAI that can be called collaborative assistants. Such systems should be able to provide the right knowledge and expertise at the right time and place, thus allowing the physician to take the best decisions. They become technologically feasible with the development of multimedia workstations, communication networks, medical standards for terminology and message communication and software engineering tools. These perspectives should not lead to over-optimistic conclusions until the barriers to the development and dissemination of CAI should be overcome. But transforming present CAI devoted to the restricted period of medical studies to lifelong education programs integrated in the health care process is the challenge of effective CAI.