Web-based education is becoming more important every day. Besides the traditional way of teaching by lectures and books nowadays multimedia programs are used frequently. As most of the adults and even children are dealing with computers regularly it seems reasonable to use them for teaching too. Compared to the conventional system the most important advantages of teaching by multimedia tools are both self-determination in learning time and method and their interactivity. The user is able to determine the intensity of his learning process himself. This method seems to be suitable for Occupational Medicine in particular. Due to a large number of students and the lack of patient wards the opportunity of bedside teaching in Occupational Medicine is limited. Therefore the motivation of medical students concerning OM is generally low. Furthermore the visitation of companies is restricted to only a few students.

Web-based virtual patients, providing the opportunity to optimise relations to practical aspects, enhance the motivation of students. For establishing the NetWoRM international teaching network, we organised a meeting with cooperating partners from Germany, Switzerland, Austria, France, Great Britain, Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, Poland, Romania, South Africa, Canada, USA and Colombia in October 2003 in Heidelberg. We decided that created clinical cases from each centre have first to be translated into an English standard version and afterwards to be adapted to the linguistic and cultural specialities of each country.

Seminars in Timisoara (Romania) and Munich (Germany) on NetWoRM virtual patient and course creation

The translated virtual patients are language- and expert- checked at the English speaking centre of our network (UK, Birmingham). The checked standard version is then distributed to the NetWoRM partner centres and adapted to the local conditions (language, legislation, medical procedures). Moreover, some virtual patients are translated from their original version directly into Spanish language. After the language check by a Spanish-speaking centre (e.g. Colombia) there is a Spanish standard version available for further use as well.

In cooperation with 12 national and international partners, we are working at the further realisation of the NetWoRM Project. After translation and adaptation of the clinical cases, our aim is to use them in numerous centres and universities as well as for medical students and for medical specialists.