bmjlearning.com

Kieran Walsh explains how the BMJ Publishing Group's website can help medical students learn

The website bmjlearning.com helps doctors learn and stay up to date. We launched the site in November 2003 and initially aimed it at general practitioners, but we have now expanded the site so that there is material available for junior hospital doctors.¹ We have also noticed that medical students have signed up to the site - not surprisingly, given that studies consistently show that younger doctors and medical students are the quickest to take up new technologies in learning.² If you are interested in having a look then here is what to expect.

The new material on bmjlearning.com focuses mainly on the needs of junior hospital doctors who are passing through their foundation years one and two. The initial learning modules will cover generic issues that all doctors need to know about and also will cover emergency medicine topics: these will be similar to the curriculum of the Modernising Medical Careers agenda.³

The idea is that if learners have access to learning resources based on the best available evidence then they will be able to improve the quality of care that they provide. And if they can record their learning systematically then they will feel more confident that they are up to date. To this end, bmjlearning.com offers comprehensive support for learning. It enables you to assess your learning needs, plan and record your learning, and do evidenced based learning modules. You can also find out about courses and conferences near you with our guide.

First of all we ask you to assess your learning needs. Maybe you feel you should stick to your curriculum or you need to focus on passing exams. Or maybe you feel that you should have the freedom to learn what you want to learn and not just what you need to learn. These are valid views but we should all think a little about our learning needs.⁴ There are a range of methods to help you discover the gaps in your knowledge, and different methods will suit different people. One way to assess your learning needs is to think about your patients. When was the last time that a patient asked you a question that you could not answer? You may have found out the answer and, ideally after checking with your tutor, told the patient the answer. The advantage of learning like this is that it makes learning much more personal and also increases the chances that you will remember what you have learnt.

The plan and record section helps you to plan and record your learning.⁵ You can use these pages on the site to plan out what learning you are going to do over the next few weeks and months. You can then track your progress in fulfilling your plan, helping you to stay organised.

But the main strength of the site is the learning modules. The site has different types of learning resources:

• Interactive case histories enable you to train and test your consultation skills
• Just in time modules offer bite sized chunks of information
• Read, reflect, respond modules allow you to read about a topic, think about the issues outlined, and give your opinions.

Some of the learning resources are similar to the educational articles in the studentBMJ but they are harder. The main thing that makes bmjlearning.com special is that at the end of the modules we ask questions.

Multiple choice questions are a big part of undergraduate and postgraduate examinations so it is important that people writing the questions do a good job.⁶ We do ask multiple choice questions, but we do not waste time testing trivial facts or asking tricky or unnecessarily complicated questions. Rather, we ask you questions on important aspects of a topic that require you to apply your knowledge. Our questions test your skills in interpreting data and making decisions, and they cover diagnosis, investigations, treatment, and prognosis. You will receive immediate feedback on your answers. Most of the students especially enjoy the multiple choice questions which we ask at the end of the learning modules.

Since the launch of the site, more than 24'000 health professionals have registered. Most of them are general practitioners from the United Kingdom, but some are UK hospital doctors. We have more than 3000 international users from more than 130 countries. The original aim of bmjlearning.com was to help doctors with their learning, and in the process we have learnt an enormous amount ourselves. But we feel we still have a lot to learn and that we can learn a lot from medical students. Although, e-learning is the buzzword of the moment,⁷ educationalists are already talking about a new idea - mobile learning or m-learning. In this type of learning you can take out your mobile phone or palm pilot and learn online at anytime and in any place. Does this appeal to you? Or do you still prefer blackboard and chalk and going for coffee at the end of a lecture?

It is still free to register with the site: if you want to have a look just click on bmjlearning.com and off you go. As well as learning something you might get an insight into what life is like as a doctor in general practice and in hospital medicine both in the long and short term. And let us know what you think.

1. Walsh K, Dillner L. Launching BMJ Learning. BMJ 2003;327:1064.
2. Parekh SG, Nazarian DG, Lim CK. Adoption of information technology by resident physicians. Clin Orthop 2004;421:107-11.
3. Neville E. Modernising medical careers. Clin Med 2003;3:529-31.
4. Grant J. Learning needs assessment: assessing the need. BMJ 2002;324:156-9.
5. Crist P, Wilcox BL, McCarron K. Transitional portfolios: orchestrating our professional competence. Am J Occup Ther 1998;52:729-36.
6. Case SM, Swanson DB. Constructing written test questions for the basic and clinical sciences. 3rd ed. London: National Board of Medical Examiners, 2001.
7. McKimm J, Jollie C, Cantillon P. ABC of learning and teaching: web based learning. BMJ 2003;326:870-3.