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Emergency medicine clinicians care for multiple patients in an unscheduled, high-acuity environment with a rapid stream of observations, tests, and treatments. Thus, in emergency medicine, patient care team members must address their information needs quickly and accurately. 1,2 In the course of every patient visit, emergency physicians use information resources to communicate with those who have prior information, view patient data, How Do Medical Students Manage Their Information Needs in Unscheduled and High-Acuity Environments?Introduction An important aspect of emergency medicine is information management, or the ability to deal effectively with the vast volume of medical information that continues to increase rapidly. Emergency medicine is a significant part of the curriculum for medical students and it is expected that all students who graduate from medical school will be capable of handling emergency situations. Because no study has focused on medical students' information needs and information seeking behavior in Iran (2000-2007), many questions have arisen such as: What are the barriers to medical students' information needs? What sources do medical students employ to answer questions? How do students use these information sources to resolve their information needs? and What are the barriers to medical students' retrieval of information in fast-paced, information-intensive environments such as emergency settings? MethodsSeventy medical students were evaluated by questionnaire and observation at teaching hospitals affiliated with the Iran University of Medical Sciences. Analysis of data was conducted using SPSS. Chi-square, two-tailed, and bi-variate correlation tests were used to investigate significant relationships among the data. ResultsStudents' major information needs were related to a specific patient. Thus, nearly 47% of questions pertained to diagnosis. In contrast, they perceived few needs for organizational information such as hospital policies and procedures. Students preferred prepared information sources such as patients' charts, patients, and colleagues. They reported that the barriers to information retrieval from electronic resources were time limitations, poor access to computers, and lack of Internet searching skills. ConclusionFindings support the development of educational programs to promote student knowledge about organizational information in emergency medicine. This study also suggests that, rather than desktop computers, more available resources, such as the personal digital assistant (PDA), are used because of ease of use, quickness, and accessibility. Lastly, the findings suggest that an information specialist should participate in increasing the searching skills of students.

Background: Over the last number of decades there has been a shift in medical education practice from traditional forms of teaching to other media which employ online, distance or electronic learning. E-learning can provide students with easier and more effective access to a wider variety and greater quantity of information. Objectives: The present study aimed to design a conceptual pattern of e- learning for Iran’s universities of Medical Sciences. Methods: This study was applied in terms of objective and qualitative in terms of data collection. The population of the study was the e-learning experts and faculty members of universities who sampled purposefully, after 30 interviews, saturation was achieved. A semi-structured questionnaire was used to interview. The qualitative data was analyzed using three- stage codings. Results: the electronic learning pattern of Iran’s universities of Medical Sciences was categorized in the following dimensions, including: "academic dimension" including components of synergogy and instructional design, human resources, infrastructure, management, organization, financial resources, ethics & culture, support, monitoring & coordination, and legal factor; The "spatial planning regions dimension" includes the components of the educational activities, research and information technology- related activities; the "national-macro dimension" includes the government’s structural and managerial supports, the government’s cultural and social supports, the government’s economic supports, the government’s scientific and technical supports, supports from the higher medical education, and supports from the private sector; the "regional – international dimension" including scientific and educational interactions, cultural and social interactions, political, and economic interactions. Conclusions: This study suggested that policy-makers, top managers of higher medical education, and those in charge of e-learning exploit the pattern proposed in this study for developing policies and programs for creating/developing e-learning centers, and sufficiently address the dimensions, categories, and indicators mentioned here, so that the long-term effects of operationalizing each category of the pattern can be demonstrated more optimally and quickly. In this way, costs can be reduced, repeat work can be avoided (especially in the face of environmental crises), and Iranian universities can progress in line with world universities and thereby take a big step towards the successful implementation of e-learning in Iran.

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