Background: Continuing education is essential for health professions and online courses can be a good way for professional development.
Aim: To describe the experience with online courses for continuing education in hepatology and gastroenterology and to analyze their educational impact.
Material and methods: A three years' experience in courses on liver diseases and digestive tract is described. Their curricular design, methodology, and the educational impact was analyzed using the four levels of the Kirkpatrick's model.
Results: On average, there were 321 students per course (2015-2017). 94% were Chilean and 6% from abroad (20 countries). In the educational impact analysis, in level 1 "reaction": 93% said that the course fulfilled their expectations and 92% would recommend it. In level 2 "learning": 42% approved the courses. Level 3 "behavior" was not evaluated and level 4 "organizational change" highlighted that the traditional face-to-face continuing education model of Chilean Gastroenterology Society (SChG) changed to full distance model in these three courses, with 1284 students from South America, Asia and Europe, in a 3-years-period. Additionally, these programs were included in the Medical Society of Santiago (SMS) continuing education agenda.
Conclusions: The alliance between the SMS and the SChG generated on line courses that meet the educational needs of physicians and medical students, with excellent results and student perception.