An Information Age Curriculum | Moving Curricula into the Information Age | John Faughnan
[This presentation led to a published article, which advances these ideas in greater depth, and benefited from a very professional editor. Faughnan JG, Elson R. Information technology and the clinical curriculum: some predictions and their implications for the class of 2003. Acad Med 1998 Jul;73(7):766-769.]
The design of an educational program begins with "real world performance" (Yelon). Sometimes, however, real world performance is a hard to picture. An "information age" curriculum for medical students requires that we imagine what clinical work will be like at least five years from now, around 2002, and what a clinician's information tools will look like.
Five years is a long time in modern computing. Five years ago Gopher was still a going concern, the White House didn't quite have a web site, and CD-ROMs weren't obsolete. On the other hand, thirty years ago the electronic medical record was felt to be just around the corner. Five years is not long at all in the world of medical workflow.
These web pages and the associated presentation represent one person's best guess at the real world performance of clinical work in 2002. Predictions are based on my current development work with Abaton.com, my clinical and computing/Web experience, my reading of the medical literature and industry, and the work and ideas of my colleague Dr. Robert Elson. The result is a compromise between the erratic evolution of information technology and the enormous inertia of clinical work.
URL: http://www.faughnan.com/meded/
Other presentations from this conference are at: Moving
Curricula into the Information Age.