Using Modern Telecommunication Technology in Postgraduate Education of Surgeons

Abstract

The system of postgraduate education of surgeons at the Ivano-Frankivsk National Medical University extensively uses contemporary telecommunications media. They include multimedia equipment during lectures and seminars with interns and surgeons during the thematic courses and pre-credentialing cycles; streaming video from operating theatre to the classrooms (using video cameras installed in every operating room) which provides not only  watching the course of operations, but also analyzing simultaneously the stages of intervention, and discussing them; video round at the surgery departments of the Regional Clinical Hospital during professional training courses of surgeons with participation of the head of the Regional Association of Surgeons, the chief surgeon of the region, heads of the surgical departments of the Ivano-Frankivsk National Medical University, the head and attending physicians of the surgical department with subsequent rolling the footage in the classroom. The use of contemporary computer and telecommunication technology should be combined with face-to-face communication of interns and students with patients and surgeons working at the department and in the operating rooms. Telecommunication technologies increase efficiency of theoretical education of doctors but do not solve the problem of improving practical skills, and mastering new techniques during surgical interventions.