Surgical education: from teledidactics to virtual training

The assessment of efficacy and quality of computer-assisted learning is today under evaluation. The Authors propose to use distant learning in the surgical knowledge teaching. In Italy, thanks to the Ministry of University and Scientific Research, a Master on distant learning in Medicine is now starting in 11 Italian Universities under the coordination of the second Faculty of Medicine of the University of Rome 'La Sapienza'. Thanks to the help of medicine and surgery teachers and informatics and telecommunication engineers, this Master is a first step to form and to license medical and surgical specialists experts in distant learning and videoconferencing telemedicine. Videoconferencing system can support Telementoring. Telementoring isn't an exclusive methodology but it is an additional methodology to tradictional didactic for clinicians and surgeons. It allows personal virtual trainings using computers and telecommunication systems.