Distance education. Part 5. Family medicine research at a distance. Guidelines for supervisors.
BACKGROUND
This paper recommends guidelines for the supervision of Masters degrees or similar postgraduate courses, in which research projects are supervised at a distance.


METHODS
The guidelines are based on the experiences of the authors with a five year old Masters of Family Medicine degree and a formative evaluation conducted by questionnaire survey among its students, graduates and supervisors.


RESULTS
It is important to establish ground rules for communication at an early point in the supervisory process. Supervisors need to take into account psychosocial, pedagogical and organisational aspects of their mentorship of students.


CONCLUSIONS
These guidelines are relevant to courses where there remains a strong one-to-one relationship between supervisors and students. In these cases, 'distance' need not be a barrier provided that both sides are aware of and committed to maintaining good patterns of communications with each other.
Schattner
P
P
Department of Community Medicine and General Practice, Monash University.
Piterman
L
L
Laerum
E
E
McCall
L
L
Parer
M
M
D003142:Communication; D020375:Education, Distance / Q000458:organization & administration*; D004503:Education, Medical, Graduate; D005194:Family Practice / Q000193:education*; D005260:Female; D017408:Guidelines as Topic; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012106:Research / Q000592:standards*; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D014739:Victoria