[Telemedicine experiences in an urology educational institute]

The Telemedicine (TM) it is a viable alternative to improve the quality of the attention to the patient; in order to obtain the suitable efficiency is convenient that specialists must handle with naturalness the technical concepts related to the installation and operation of the equipment required in a TM session. In this work results on telemedicine teaching at the Center of Image Processing, are presented, showing the development of this medical-technology project. The objective of the course was to upgrade the academic formation of the students in the area of the TM, showing its versatility through varied experiences and medical practice. The experimental phase of telemedicine course was made for the Master Degree Program in Urology of Carabobo University. This activity was carried out at the Urology Teaching Institute (IDU). This article describes the experience and explains details of the videoconference equipment's configuration, the medical peripherals used in TM, the telecommunications services installation, the medical ambient in TM and the course programming. The course was twelve (12) weeks long. Some tutorials were given to make level the doctor's knowledge and soon teleconsulting were made which are explained later. Courses of this category have been made in several countries. This it is the first formal experience in TM in Venezuela having didactic goals. This course allowed us to observe the interaction between doctors and TM equipment's, related to teleradiology (RX and ultrasound) and telecitoscopy.