Web-Based CAI for a Distance Education Neurology Course

At the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Rockford, the Rural Medical Education Program prepares students with the special knowledge, skills, and attitudes to be successful as Family Physicians in rural Illinois. Students in this special medical education track spend four months off-campus on a rural preceptorship under the supervision of a practicing rural family physician. This poster session presented an instructional unit that was developed to provide these students an opportunity to complete their required senior neurology clerkship off-campus. This unique distance-education neurology course provides a focused tutorial on the neurological physical exam plus sixteen WWW-accessible case studies whose medical content is identical to the paper cases used in the traditional clerkship. The unit proved to be an effective vehicle to support mastery of a defined set of learning objectives in neurology. Most participants expressed interest in further web-based courses after this initial experience.