Educational Technology Applied To Medical Training: Success and Failure in a Co‐operative Venture in the Federal Republic of Germany

Abstract

A critical review of a project concerned with the introduction of educational technology in medical training is presented Under the aspects of achievements and failures, the project's goal of combining the creative potential of four independent institutions to develop a permanent media centre for medicine in Lower Saxony, FRG, is discussed The positive balance of a quantity of new medical teaching materials and the establishment of a highly popular media library is weighed against the failure to achieve the project's main aims The reasons for the lack of involvement by the staff in the production of audio‐visual teaching materials are described, as are the possible causes of the failure of a co‐operative style of work between the four institutions The tradition of competition, power structures within the traditional universities in the FRG, and the emphasis on research as opposed to teaching, are seen as contributing to the final demotion of the unit of medical education to a unit for media services, and to the relinquishment of the idea of the regional media centre.