Online continuous medical education: Diagnosing fungal infections from a distance

Increasing global incidence of serious fungal infections (SFI) requires increasing access to high quality medical mycology education to improve their identification and decrease associated mortality.

An online course was developed by two infectious diseases (ID) specialists. The course aimed to improve diagnosis of SFI and was delivered from April-June 2019. The course consisted of 9 online interactive sessions every week. Sessions were streamed by a hospital in Mexico and local participants gather there every week. Other participants connected independently online. Participants took one exam at the start and another after the course was completed. Feedback was collected during the course. A final evaluation of the impact on diagnosis will be collected in October 2019.

A total of 137 people registered for the course. Registrants were from four different countries, Mexico (126, 92%), Ecuador (9, 6.6%), Australia (1, 0.7%) and Bolivia (1, 0.7%). Mexican participants connected from 15 of the 32 regions (47%) in Mexico and 45 (33%) attended the course at host hospital. Most participants were physicians (76%), 54 were ID specialists and 19 were ID residents. Sixty participants (60/137, 44%) completed the course, with greater completion by those attending in person (33/45, 73%) compared with online attendance (27/92, 29%). The exams results improved 30% after the course. Clinical urgent calls limited attendance.

This online course allowed a broad geographical participation. Learning as group lead to better completion rates. Recorded sessions will be available on demand and may allow the completion of the course.