Learning medical and dental sciences through interactive multi-media

Health professionals in various fields of Medicine and Dentistry must acquire comprehensive technological knowledge in order to practice their professions. A large portion of that knowledge cannot be found in a textbook. Examples of this type of information are data gleaned from viewing microscopic slides and dissecting cadavers. In order to fully comprehend an area of study in medicine, the student relies on various resources (often physically unrelated, like the x-ray department and the dissection room). This situation makes the teaching and learning processes much more difficult to accomplish, since the instructor and students have to manipulate multiple media and take the courses in various sites. Today's technology allows us to design and create teaching and learning tools that can alleviate these difficulties. Personal computers are now used to capture and display a vast array of information through many different media: text, sound, images, photographs, illustrations, animation and video. This information can be presented to the user with audio-visual interfaces designed to facilitate efficient communication of ideas. It is controlled primarily by the use of the mouse, at one's own pace. This interactive, multi-media approach to teaching and learning is called "Edutainment" (Education and Entertainment). This demonstration will show how these new tools are used to teach and learn about various subjects related to Medicine, particularly in Dermatology and Dentistry. Several courseware applications were developed, addressing various aspects of the field: Cancers of the Skin, Dental Development, the Temporomandibular joint, the Masticatory Muscles etc. These programs provide anthropological data on growth collected through longitudinal research, diagnosis and treatments of pigmented lesions of the skin, thousands of digitized x-rays accessible through a relational database, the latest imaging technology used to diagnose the temporomandibular disorders, high-quality photographs of dissecting room material of the head and neck region, 3-dimensional animation of physiological principles of the temporomandibular joint movements, digital video of examination techniques, and other valuable resources to the user. The software were developed for both platforms, Macintosh and PC/Compatible, and all of them are in English and French, with some titles available in Spanish. To facilitate their distribution and usage, they were written to hybrid CD-ROMs, i.e., one CD-ROM was produced for each application, containing versions for both platforms in all languages. The CD-ROMs were recorded in our premises. During the presentation, the technical aspects of the development and production of a Multi-media document will be discussed along with the scientific content of the CD-ROM.