Medisch student zet geneeskundeonderwijs op zijn kop

These days, students are gathering their own source materials using Google and leave the required textbooks on the shelves. This means the future of medical education lies in facilitating and freely sharing modern learning resources. This rapid shift, away from traditional textbooks, is causing unrest in academic education. The faculty is losing control and the overall picture. Existing teaching materials with strict copyrights have made it difficult for teachers and students to learn from each other. The productivity and professional curiosity of a sector that not only desires but also requires life-long learning, is being undermined by meaningless barriers and duplication of work. Free learning resources are making it easier for both students and professionals to learn, share and quickly get access to the right information. In this article, we explain what this means for medical education, what is needed and we provide a few examples.

Conflict of interest and financial support: potential conflicts of interest have been reported for this article. ICMJE forms provided by the authors are available online along with the full text of this article.