Romanian e-learning in Occupational Medicine - NetWoRM

Introduction
Occupational medicine is a borderline medical speciality, between preclinic and clinic, more prophylactic than curative. It is necessary to have knowledge about working environment, laws and occupational diseases. It is not very attractive for young students, and it is not compulsory in every universities of medicine. In medicine we don’t always have patients with diseases that we teach at that moment. These are some reasons for which our colleagues of Institute for Occupational and Environmental Medicine “Ludwig Maximillian” University of Munich created this e-learning way for occupational medicine- NeTWoRM: Net –based Training for Work-Related Medicine.

Methods
This European project took place in two stages, the first one being part to the SOCRATES programme (2004-2007), and the second to the LLP Leonardo Da Vinci& studies, indicators and dissemination (2008-2009). Each partner country developed a case which subsequently was translated into English. The main research consisted of ten occupational medicine cases, translated and adapted into Romanian. The Romanian users were students and resident physicians in occupational medicine. At the same time the conceptual structure of these cases represent a way to test the knowledge of applicants.

Results
462 students and 70 resident physicians in occupational medicine were the active users. The average work time spent per case was 33 min. The rate of correct answers was 63% for students and 55% for physicians. The assessment of this type of learning was performed through a questionnaire and revealed the fact that for most users it was a pleasant and interesting way to learn, to improve knowledge, it was helpful for the exam and induced critical dispute.

Discussion
The NeTWoRM users’ reactions were positive. The future objectives are: to continues to apply this e-learning method, to implement it in other medical disciplines and in other university centres, to obtain the ECM for it.