{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.022893772893772892, 'fraction_numerical': 0.003357753357753358, 'mean_word_length': 5.501984126984127, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Effective use of technology in gastroenterology training.

Medical education is undergoing an evolution no less significant than that ushered in by the 1910 Flexner report on “Medical Education in the United States and Canada” that set forth the archetype by which physicians would be trained and educated. Now, more than 100 years later, the foundations laid in Flexner’s report remain in place and continue to influence the way medicine and gastroenterology are taught. The last century has also produced major changes in society, technology, and medicine as a whole. These changes are working synergistically to change gastroenterology and GI training, providing new opportunities in the way we train our GI fellows. Clinician– educators and students today are under considerable pressure from society to enhance the quality of medical education and patient safety. GI faculty are striving to meet these goals along with meeting the increasing demands on their time to deliver care, teach, meet regulatory requirements, and increase productivity. Trainees in GI have an increasing amount of clinical information to master and procedural skills to obtain within a limited time frame. To meet these challenges, gastroenterologists and trainees can work together using technology to develop new teaching methods that supplement the traditional fellowship training. This is a great opportunity benefiting both groups. GI trainees, who typically are “digital natives,” can partner with their GI faculty, who typically are “digital immigrants,” to design new technology-based training tools. The convergence of three technologic advances has provided the tools for these new educational opportunities: advances in multimedia technology, evolution of the World Wide Web into Web2.0, and the ubiquitous availability of personal computers and handheld devices. It has been a “perfect storm,” transforming the landscape of education in gastroenterology, providing the impetus to move from early applications, available to only a few ground-breaking medical educators, to the robust applications readily available to GI faculty and trainees today. The concept of learning by doing—“see-one, do-one, teach-one”— has become less acceptable or practical in current times, particularly when invasive procedures are involved and high-risk care is being delivered. Despite the best efforts of educators, some procedures and diseases are relatively rare in clinical practice, making it difficult to educate trainees to see and do, much less teach. These pressures and the technologic advances in multimedia applications, the evolution of Web2.0, and computers have been at the heart of innovative methods to acquire knowledge and procedural skill. Endoscopy simulators, virtual patients, and web-based education all fulfill these criteria and are particularly well-suited to the teaching of gastroenterology. This commentary outlines the opportunities available to utilize technology in teaching and learning gastroenterology. I hope my excitement about these opportunities is evident and that I can convey insights on how to use these technologies successfully, to understand their individual strengths and limitations, and to critically evaluate the outcomes associated with each modality.