Advances in e-learning in undergraduate clinical medicine: a systematic review

Background: E-learning is recognised as a useful educational tool and is becoming more common in undergraduate medical education. This review aims to examine the scope and impact of e-learning interventions on medical student learning in clinical medicine, in order to aid medical educators when implementing e-learning strategies in programme curricula.

Methods: A systematic review compliant with PRISMA guidelines that appraises study design, setting and population, context and type of evaluations. Specifc search terms were used to locate articles across nine databases: MEDLINE/PubMed, ScienceDirect, EMBASE, Cochrane Library, ERIC, Academic Search Complete, CINAHL, Scopus and Google Scholar. Only studies evaluating e-learning interventions in undergraduate clinical medical education between January 1990 and August 2021 were selected. Of the 4,829 papers identifed by the search, 42 studies met the inclusion criteria.

Results: The 42 studies included varied in scope, cognitive domain, subject matter, design, quality and evaluation. The most popular approaches involved multimedia platforms (33%) and case-based approaches (26%), were interactive (83%), asynchronous (71%) and accessible from home (83%). Twelve studies (29%) evaluated usability, all of which reported positive feedback. Competence in use of technology, high motivation and an open attitude were key characteristics of successful students and preceptors.

Conclusions: Medical education is evolving consistently to accommodate rapid changes in therapies and procedures. In today’s technologically adept world, e-learning is an efective and convenient pedagogical approach for the teaching of undergraduate clinical medicine.