Free website for medical students a prescription for augmented digital learning
TORONTO — There’s no question medical students have to cram in a lot of information on their way to becoming full-fledged doctors, and a new Canadian teaching website aims to make that journey a little less onerous.
Students now have access to a free online platform, called medskl.com, which provides digital-based learning for today’s future physicians, many of whom have grown up on YouTube, says its developer.
“The lessons are designed to be short, fun and engaging so the information sticks,” said Dr. Sanjay Sharma, a retina specialist and professor at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont., explaining that the open-access website employs video lectures, whiteboard animations and summary notes to help students diagnose and plan treatment for a broad range of illnesses.
“I started thinking about the traditional model of the one-hour didactic lecture and it clearly wasn’t resonating with the millennial generation,” Sharma added. “So that’s where I said, ‘Is there a way to really build a more effective and more accessible system for the next generation of physicians?’”