E-learning has brought about a great revolution in almost all fields of study, and none more so than in the medical fraternity. Learning from online medical courses has opened up new ways of studying, and brought about more opportunities for students to understand the subject material in a completely novel fashion. Traditional education is fraught with multiple limitations; chief amongst them being their shortage of resources at hand to teach a subject, as well as their relative inflexibility. The high cost and busy classrooms of many medical schools forbid effective learning in an aspiring student, killing their enthusiasm and the joy of learning that makes medicine beautiful, but, the rapid advances of digital technology throughout the world has led to a proliferation of services offering replacement, or supplemental, medical courses online. This has rapidly advanced the learning opportunities for medical students around the world and simplified medical studies. The following article lists the various ways in which online medical courses have simplified the task of delivering high-quality medical education to any willing learner. E-Learning gives students guidance Medicine is vast and often students get lost in that vastness without the right learning and guidance. Good e-learning courses offer an effective way out to master the medical program by providing a learning schedule. Moreover, keeping record of the students’ performance and measuring progress is essential to help students mastering the extensive workload. Ideally, the technology settings allow the user to continue the online video where it was paused the day before to get back to studies at smooth as possible. E-Learning enables students to learn whenever, wherever you want The key advantage of e-learning in medical courses over the more conventional forms of learning are the flexibility afforded in such online courses. There is no compulsion to attend a lecture at a pre-specified time. Lectures can be viewed at any time of the day, on any form of device, be it a laptop, tablet or smartphone. Video lectures can be viewed again in the future to clarify certain doubts or to revisit important topics. There is no need to travel miles out to attend a class. Learning can happen in the comfort of your home. The convenience offered by e-learning is thus, unmatchable by any other mode of learning. E-Learning offers students medical education at a nominal price Medical programs have become extremely expensive in many countries, especially in the institutes famed for having a strong medical course. As such, it becomes difficult for a large number of students to attain a high quality of medical education. E-learning levels the playing field by offering a rich-in-content and deep-in-understanding medical course at a nominal price. The price savings, made coupled with the acquisition of proficient medical knowledge for life, makes this an unbeatable deal to have. E-Learning adjusts to the individual student’s learning preference Learning is a highly individual process, with different students preferring a varying mode of acquiring knowledge. Some students learn best by reading; others by images and certain others by listening to audio. E-learning covers all kinds of students by providing medical content in all forms of learning. This, virtually, enables almost everyone to acquire a high degree of proficiency in medical concepts. E-Learning allows each student to learn at its own pace Some students are fast learners, absorbing information at a faster rate than the rest. However, a considerable number of students require breaks while studying, taking their time to master concepts in a slow, thought-out fashion. E-learning offers students a great help by allowing them to choose their pace of learning, without the need to feel rushed into topics too quickly or wait for others on topics they’ve mastered rapidly. This flexibility in picking the pace of learning makes for far more effective learning than traditional classroom-based education. Is it all rosy in the world of E-learning? Unfortunately, no. E-learning does have its own sets of problems, which can be overcome with the right amount of effort and time. Foremost among them is the fact that certain medical concepts require more than e-learning to master their core aspects. E-learning is still limited by the inability to have dynamic discussions around the topic at hand, thereby restricting the interactive space in which a student explores a medical concept in depth. Another important negative attribute of e-learning is that the proliferation of online medical courses creates a problem of abundance, with the student at pains to choosing between multiple online medical courses. A student should pick the course he feels comfortable with, and proper attention must be paid at picking the right resource for medical training. Another major limitation of e-learning that prohibits many students from enrolling in such courses is the lack of proper guidance and knowledge about the benefits of online learning. Dispelling the fears associated with learning via an online course and listing its multiple benefits (which this article hopefully tries to do) will go a long way in defining the future of e-learning. As can be seen, e-learning courses are not without their limitations, but the large number of benefits accrued from these courses far outweigh their negatives. E-learning courses can massively simplify medical studies and be an effective companion to any willing learner who wishes to master the wonderfully exciting and different concepts in this beautiful science we know as medicine. Source
