The establishment and evaluation of a national online clinical teaching repository for surgical trainees and students

We aimed to develop a new teaching strategy for medical students while creating a national online repository system (Surgent University). We then evaluated the potential of this e-learning modality to facilitate clinical surgical teaching.An online repository and internet-based interface was designed and hosted on the medical education website www.surgent.ie. Participation was by medical students across three Irish universities. Participating medical students on surgical rotations were asked to upload facts attained through clinical teaching at the end of every day. They then peer-reviewed facts uploaded by other students, with reference to published literature. Student usage of the repository was quantitatively assessed over an eight week period. They were then invited to complete an anonymous survey assessing effectiveness of the online repository. Statistical analysis was performed using SPSS v15 with p<0.05 considered significant.Over the study period the online repository received 6,105 uploaded facts by 182 final year medical students from the three different universities. The repository web pages were accessed 54,061 times with 4,609 individual searches of the repository. Of the 60 participating students invited to provide survey-based feedback there were 40 respondents, giving a 67% response rate. Of those surveyed, 70% (n=28) rated the online repository as highly beneficial and 75% (n=30) as highly relevant. Overall 87.5% (n=35) felt that it should be continued, and 70% (n=28) felt that it should be expanded beyond surgery to include other hospital specialities. Those who found the programme interface user-friendly were more likely to find it beneficial (p=0.031) and relevant to their ongoing medical education (p=0.002).A user-friendly interface allows for high levels of usage while a ‘student-centred’ structure ensures that the facts uploaded are beneficial and relevant to medical students’ education.