Learning PDA skills online is feasible and acceptable to clerkship students.

BACKGROUND The feasibility and acceptability of teaching medical students to use PDA clinical decision support tools via a Web-based course have not been previously evaluated. METHODS A total of 119 third-year family medicine clerkship students completed a baseline survey on PDA use, attended an introductory PDA lecture, and were invited to voluntarily access a Web-based course through Blackboard. All students had been previously issued with PDAs in their second year. RESULTS At baseline, 95% of students reported having removed their PDA from its box, 59% reported using it weekly, and 71% had loaded medical applications. From August 2006--March 2007, 36 students accessed the course 610 times (range 8-54). The PDA cases comprised 63% of hits, course resources 30% of hits, and course information 6% of hits. Students evaluated the course equally to other clerkship didactics. CONCLUSIONS It is feasible and acceptable to students to teach PDA decision support tools in an online course. In our setting, for the minority of students who chose to learn online, the format was successful and met their needs.