Medical Education and Development of Medical Informatics at McMaster University Faculty of Health Sciences, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada R. Brian Haynes, M.D., Ph.D. Director, Program for Educational Development McMaster University Faculty of Health Sciences The Educational Milieu at McMaster From one perspective, the approach to health sciences education at McMaster can be viewed as an experiment which, although it has already borne fruit, will bear its finest crops during the " I n f o r m a t i o n Age" due to the improvements in information management made possible by new technology. The process of education at McMaster I is problembased "learning by inquiry.' From the first day of school, students are given health care problems to solve and they do so by developing the skills to extract pertinent facts from a wide range of information resources in the form of print materials, audiovisual media, the expertise of the faculty, and the students own experiences with real and simulated patients and health care situations. In this environment, self-directed learning skills are essential and critical appraisal of evidence is one of the most important tools for survival. This is a departure from traditional methods of education in
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