AMEE was held in Basel Switzerland this year. The European organisation has become an International Conference for Medical Educators. For us it was a good place to meet and discuss with those who have an interest in the development of innovative eLearning solutions for health care educators.
There was much discussion, for example, about the role of Virtual and Augmented reality and it was apparent from a number of presentations that these technologies have their limitations. Augmented reality, for example (when computer generated images are superimposed on the real world through the use of special glasses) has significant limitations with regard to the field of vision – which can be limited to 50 – 60 degrees. We will keep a watching brief on this technology but our feeling is that this is not quite ready and is still at the stage of a solution looking for a problem. There are however many excitement developments in the use of VR for Anatomy.
In the trade exhibitions there were many companies offering solutions for anatomy teaching eg Plastination, 3D printing and video anatomy tables. There were exhibitors offering a variety of solutions for assessment and also publishing houses offering content online.
