Dismissal of online learning still a thing?

[High_Order1]

This might just be a question of expectations.  Maybe if people are conditioned to expect the needle to be perfectly placed on the first try, they will require doctors/nurses with actual in-person coursework.  However, if people are okay with a couple of sticks, then online is probably perfectly okay.

Haha!

Kindly disagree.

Short answer - do YOU want to be the first tissue-based exemplar your brain surgeon has ever touched?

Long answer - I have been an early adopter of technology. Especially distance education. I was doing it when it was called 'correspondence courses'.

Even in todays' borderline 'star trek' reality, there simply are things that lend well to online education, and some that are not.

Some that are not include things that require a certain amount of physical skill or dexterity.

Example: they make what's called a 'virtual cadaver' now. I've seen it, it's fascinating. But it still does not replace cutting into a tissue-based cadaver with a face and painted toenails and was someone's grandmother just a few hours ago.

Example: I've gotten to run notional 'pursuits' on an immersive simulator. Pretty neat, they basically hacked the interior out of a police car type vehicle, and you sit in a seat and off you go. The lack of the effects of physics makes its' use limited at best. It is great for taking a person who is new to emergency vehicle response, and sit on a bucket and say hey, let's pause here. What do we need to do? In the old days, it was in a retired cruiser on a skid pad. And you wore a helmet. And sometimes a mouthguard. lol

In both examples, online / distance / virtual is an excellent way to 'dip your toe' into the subject material in a less judgmental, less invasive way. But there are tons of topics that cannot be given adequate attention unless you are actually doing it, even if you're doing it in a safe harbor.

One way this tide is receding - have you ever heard of the sim man 3G? This is a toy robot that costs about 10 grand. It hooks up to a computer. Everything on it works like a patient; the eyes dilate, you can check pulse, start a foley catheter, cardiovert it. When they use the headset,  you can even interact with it like a disney attraction dummy!

Currently students are videotaped as they process a preselected scenario. No proctors are in the room. The student responds and probes exactly like it was a tissue-based encounter.

I can see a day where you can order a 'paramedic in a box' or doctor in a box' and one of those things arrives at your house, and you still do skills, but an instructor proctors you just like how our testing works now.

So I pose the question here: If an online learner took the same necessary in-person training as the brick-and-mortar learner 

 assuming a pure B&M learner and an online learner both had equal hands on/clinical experience 

MNomadic

It takes real hand on practice.  

So we are in agreement 

If and assuming are both a big question?

I am still waiting for the Navy SEAL online course

In the very early 1980's, there was a set of Army Professional Development correspondence courses for the Special Forces MOS. Graduates got the ASI, but were derisively referred to as 'paper tabbers'...