Online-learning: exploring practices among Foundation doctors.

INTRODUCTION

Postgraduate medical education involves the use of online-learning tools. However, there is a paucity of data on the use of online-learning among doctors who are in their 1 and 2 years of professional work after graduating from medical school (also known as Foundation doctors). Our aim was to explore the use of online-learning among Foundation doctors.

METHODS

A cross-sectional study was carried out, using convenience sampling. During one month, 66 Foundation doctors from across 2 district hospitals and 1 teaching hospital in Southeast England filled out a specially designed questionnaire. Data were collected and analyzed using Microsoft Excel™, and reported in numbers and percentages.

RESULTS

The majority of Foundation doctors (86.4% (n=57)) reported using online-learning packages. These are the tools which consist of key information on a particular topic, and may be interactive and broken down into several smaller modules. Less than half embarked on online-learning in their 1st month of employment, with a decline in the numbers who started in the later months. Of those who reported completing online-learning packages, 57.9% (n=33) reported completing non-compulsory modules, 66.7% (n=38) reported completing a range of 0-15 modules per week, and 75.4% (n=43) completed the modules without skipping components. More Foundation doctors reported using online-learning for lifelong learning (63.6% (n=42)) and filling knowledge gaps (51.5% (n=34)) than improving their practice following a mistake (24.2% (n=16)). Additionally, online-learning was used less frequently than medical websites or search engines, for the aforementioned purposes.

CONCLUSION

Most Foundation doctors use online-learning, but this needs to be incorporated into their postgraduate learning activities earlier in their career and directed more towards improving their clinical practice.