Creating a Pilot Educational Psychiatry Website: Opportunities, Barriers, and Next Steps

BACKGROUND: While medical students and residents may be utilizing websites as online learning resources, medical trainees and educators now have the opportunity to create such educational websites and digital tools on their own. However, the process and theory of building educational websites for medical education have not yet been fully explored. OBJECTIVE: To understand the opportunities, barriers, and process of creating a novel medical educational website. METHODS: We created a pilot psychiatric educational website to better understand the options, opportunities, challenges, and processes involved in the creation of a psychiatric educational website. We sought to integrate visual and interactive Web design elements to underscore the potential of such Web technology. RESULTS: A pilot website (PsychOnCall) was created to demonstrate the potential of Web technology in medical and psychiatric education. CONCLUSIONS: Creating an educational website is now technically easier than ever before, and the primary challenge no longer is technology but rather the creation, validation, and maintenance of information for such websites as well as translating text-based didactics into visual and interactive tools. Medical educators can influence the design and implementation of online educational resources through creating their own websites and engaging medical students and residents in the process.