Audiovisual materials and the telephone: medical teaching at a distance.

Abstract

The telephone conference or linked-tutorial-using loudspeaking telephones operating over the regular public telephone lines and exchanges-offers a solution to the problem of delivering collective teaching to groups of medical students, who have been dispersed throughout several district hospitals, away from the academic units, for their clinical experience. The interactive sound links established by this method are illustrated by specially prepared audiovisual packages. These are copied and distributed to the scattered student groups. The paper describes the development of the telephone methods, the design and production of audiovisual materials, and gives an assessment of student reactions and attitudes to the teaching method.