Clinicians and computers: friends or foes?

Computer-aided learning is accepted by students as a learning resource, but the views of the teaching community are largely unknown.

To document clinicians' experience with computers and to record their attitudes toward computer usage in clinical practice and student education.

Questionnaire mailed out to all clinicians, including interns and residents, fellows, and attending physicians in 3 major teaching hospitals in South Australia, with a total of 646 clinical staff.

Replies were received from 246 staff. Eighty percent of clinicians had at least 2 years of experience with computers and used computers for at least 2 hr each week. Despite this, there was an obvious lack of conviction among clinicians that computer-aided learning was of use in student education and assessment. This may reflect their lack of experience with this medium as an educational tool.

If computer-aided learning is to make any significant impact on medical student education, it must be carefully and objectively evaluated, and its benefit must be clearly demonstrated to clinical teachers.