Theme
9II Virtual Patients/Social networking
INSTITUTION
Phramongkutklao College of Medicine - Military and Community Medicine
Department of Military and Community Medicine is responsible for cohorts of medical students in both classroom and fieldwork sessions in both community and military medicine courses. The department’s tasks range from directing, providing study materials and monitoring for medical students. The medical student groups are various from small groups of 2 to 3 students to a whole class of 100 medical students.With the limited human and other resources, current technologies were brought in and used in the department.
With the limitation of human and other resources, the social networks, Facebook and Line, have been introduced and used as mass medias to keep our staff real-time connecting with our students since 2011. The social networks have been utilized in terms of: 1) preparation and orientation the students prior to their rotation in our department, 2) provision of material and guidance to students while they are in their rotation and 3) communication with the students after finished the modules.
After using this mass communication strategy with several cohorts, there were high response rates from the students and less communication mismatches between staff and students.
The application of these internet-based networks has not only improved the learning environments in the aspects mentioned but also reduced the department staff's workloads and staff-student communication gaps.