First and Fourth Year Medical Students' Preferred Resources for Answering Clinical Questions
2008, Volume 1, Number 2 90 Introduction One would be hard pressed to find any corner of our society that has not been significantly impacted by the growth of computer technology over the last several years. This, of course, includes the fields of medicine and medical education. The explosion of the World Wide Web and its ever increasing availability to stu-dents often leaves medical educators with a difficult dilemma. On the one hand, the World Wide Web is an attractive and easily accessible tool for today's tech-nologically savvy medical student; it puts innumer-able volumes of textbooks, research articles, and in-structional multimedia at one's fingertips without the need to physically enter a library and negotiate cata-logues, journals, and books. On the other hand, infor-mation found on the World Wide Web displays a great variability of quality and reliability. There is no guarantee that online information is well-researched or nonbiased, and many students lack the skill, time, or desire to differentiate reliable from unreliable in-formation [1]. Nevertheless, data indicate that as the number of online resources grows, the number of in-dividuals using traditional sources of information, such as textbooks, is decreasing [2]. All medical students at the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine are required to complete a two week ophthalmology rotation during their third or fourth years of schooling. In order to adequately meet the educational needs of medical students rotating on the ophthalmology service, we felt it was important to gain a better understanding of what resources stu-First and Fourth Year Medical Students' Preferred Resources for Answering Clinical Questions Lucas Wendel, MD 1,* , Andrew Doan, MD, PhD 2,3 , Kristi Ferguson, PhD 4 , Thomas Oetting, MD 1 , and Jess Mandel, MD 5 1 Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, Iowa City, IA 2 Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Bethesda, MD 3 Naval Medical Center San Diego, Department of Ophthalmology, San Diego, CA 4 University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine, Iowa City, IA 5 University of California at San Diego School of Medicine, San Diego, CA * Corresponding Author & e-mail: Lucas-Wendel@uiowa.edu Abstract We examined how students at the Carver College of Medicine use online resources when faced with clinical questions. An electronic survey was developed and distributed to first and fourth year medical students. Both first and fourth year students chose the World Wide Web as their preferred resource for information. First year students chose Google as their preferred resource, whereas fourth year students preferred UpToDate. Both groups were more concerned with finding rapidly accessible resources than nonbiased ones. While students do become more sophisticated in their search for online resources, many seem to value con-venience over lack of bias. Medical educators, including ophthalmology course directors, must address online resource use by students in order to ensure responsible use of the World Wide Web as a clinical resource. Accepted for publication March 18, 2008 Revision received August 11, 2008 2008; 1:90-96 Available via open-access on the web at http://www.academic-ophthalmology.com The author(s) have no personal financial interest in any of the products or technologies cited herein.' The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Navy, Department of Defense, or the United States Government. 2008