Radiological clinical telesession: a cooperative working environment for sharing clinical experience over the Internet.

We describe here a six-year-long project during which groups of radiologists belonging to various hospitals in Extremadura (one of Spain's regions) shared their clinical experience over the Internet in a process of continuing medical education. We designed a set of tools based on the most familiar Internet protocols (the WWW and e-mail) that make computer-mediated communication very straightforward. Periodically, each group put forward a clinical case of interest, presenting it on a Web page. The other participating groups discussed the case (in real or deferred time), describing the radiological findings, proposing a differential diagnosis, and making suggestions concerning the case. The clinical case was subsequently resolved by the proposing group on the basis of definitive diagnostic tests, and posted for public access on the Internet as a teaching file to form part of a cases-of-interest archive. As of present, more than 65 cases have been presented and discussed, and 55 posted as teaching files. At about halfway through the project, the participants were asked to respond to a questionnaire. In their responses, they indicated a high degree of acceptance of the system, finding no special difficulties in the use of the tools. They also reported having incorporated some of the procedures (consultation of clinical cases on Internet, access to information specifically targeted at radiologists, consulting specialist literature, etc.) into their work habits.