Empowering health sciences students through the World Wide Web: a lifelong learning concept

Digital connections and the delivery of critical medical information are becoming more commonplace each day. The same delivery methods, especially emphasizing the World Wide Web, can be applied to formal teaching, updates and reviews of knowledge, and life-long learning. Using an approach that focuses on a single-location delivery of basic science education, clinical education/support and communications can allow for a far more integrated approach to building professional-level and continued education and practice into the same framework. A variety of exciting new approaches to the delivery of basic science and clinical education are being utilized, including case studies, interactive clinical support, knowledge bases and graphics databanks, and database search techniques. These are used as a basis, coupled with electronic library services (reference support, document delivery) for clinical support tools, including online reference materials, full-text journals and e-mail to peers, specialists and other experts. This concept and its applications are discussed in detail, including its application to the patient, consumer, lay public and research community. Educational concepts and technical applications are highlighted, as well as examples of successful implementation.