This article has two major objectives. Firstly, the need for distance education (DE) in Mongolia's health sector is examined. A project is reported with the general objective of initiating research, development, and experimentation in distance-based medical diagnosis and consultancy, and in DE for rural medical doctors using Internet-based applications. The project's specific objectives (2003-2006) were to: (1) Establish distance diagnosis centers at the Health Sciences University of Mongolia in Ulaanbaatar and at medical centers in three selected rural areas; (2) Investigate, assess, and adapt various medical distance diagnosis technologies using the low bandwidth Internet available in rural areas of Mongolia, and to train medical specialists in these methods; (3) Train the project's instructors in web-based teaching technologies and methodologies; (4) Prepare new web-based training materials for the continuous education of rural doctors; and (5) Evaluate the project, and formulate recommendations for the continuous training of doctors and the introduction of telemedicine and distance diagnosis methods. In conclusion, recommendations are made for future DE policies and practices in Mongolian medical education. (Contains 4 tables.)