Distance education:a flexible learning approach for practising doctors

Abstract

Distance education is a mode of delivery of education materials such as printed matter, audio and video tapes to the doorstep of learners. It is flexible because it is learner centered, self paced, not constrained by fixed time and place commitments and is transferable to be undertaken anywhere at anytime. General practice teaching through this method was started in the U.K. in the 1950s. In Sri Lanka, a distant education programme for general practitioners to update themselves and obtain post graduate qualifications has enormous potential. These article describes the methodology applied to implement a distant education course for the Diploma in Family Medicine conducted by the Postgraduate Institute of Medicine. This method could be adapted for post graduate education or for CME programme in any other clinical specialising.