A LIFE-LONG LEARNING EXPERIENCE ON MEDICAL STUDIES AT UNED: MASTER ON MEDICAL PHYSICS J.C. Antoranz, UNED, Spain Co-author/s and affiliation: D. Rodríguez-Pérez, M.M. Desco, C. Santa Marta, J.L. Martínez- Guitarte, UNED, Spain M. Desco, Medical Imaging Laboratory, Hospital General Universitario Gregorio Marañón, Spain Summary Medical studies and distance teaching seemed an antithesis. Here we show our current experience in the first Master on Medical Physics, started last October 2008 at UNED with 50 students enrolled and a staff of 29 people. The Physics Faculty has developed a Master on Medical Physics with the collaboration and support of the Experimental Medicine Department of the Hospital General Universitario Gregorio Marañón, in the context of the European Space for Higher Education. Here, we report our experience during the first semester of the Master. The first year consists on a curricular adaptation course for all students dependent on their academic origin; this endows them with the minimal common knowledge. We present the technology, the methodology employed and the academic results, which are briefly studied and lead us to some conclusions. Besides Spain; we have currently students from other countries in Europe as well as South America. Moreover, we have received many information requests from other countries. That is why we pretend to offer this Master in English in a near future. We believe that ours is an example of how life-long learning models, traditionally linked to open universities, can be successfully applied to Masters on Medical Physics. Introduction The higher education structure in all Europe is changing due to the establishment of the European Space for Higher Education (ESHE) after the Bologna treaty. This educational space will allow, among others, new postgraduate studies aimed at a specialized life-long learning in an “unstable” labor world. These new postgrades will also avoid redundancy in knowledge acquisition to an increasing number of life-long students. These life-long students will have available the exploration of new fields thanks to the new Bologna modular and change adaptable vision of higher education. This is not an easy task, especially if the education is carried out at distance. It is even more true in the case of distance education in medical studies, which resembles an antithesis, and