Distributed medical informatics education using internet2

The curricula of most medical informatics training programs are incomplete. We used Internet2-based videoconferencing to expand the educational opportunities of medical informatics students at Oregon Health & Science University and the University of Pittsburgh. Students and faculty in both programs shared extra-curricular research conferences and journal club meetings. A course in Information Retrieval was made available to students in both programs. The conferences, meetings and class were well accepted by participants. A few problems were experienced with the technology, some of which were resolved, and some non-technical challenges to distributing academic conferences, meetings and coursework were also uncovered. We plan to continue our efforts with expanded course and extra-curricular offerings and a more comprehensive evaluation strategy.