THE INTERNET AND EDUCATION IN SURGERY

The purpose of this review is to explain the developing role of the In ternet and the World Wide Web (WWW) in promoting education in surgery. Internet sites relevant to surgery are appearing rapidly. Remote lite rature searches can query for surgery trials and results. Societies ar e using the WWW for transmission and review of publication materials. News groups interactively discuss current developments and trends. Sur geons are using personal and institutional sites to advertise services . Conventional slide shows migrate to the WWW for convenient downloadi ng for surgeons and patients. Multimedia capabilities of the WWW expan d the depth of information transmission, enabling education emanating from remote sites with narration and video depiction of procedures. Th ese sophisticated tools can be demonstrated today with real online app lications. One site facilitates surgical education using the WWW for p rogram information, symposium coordination, links to regional subspeci alty societies, residency cataloging, patient question and answer foru ms, and multimedia procedure descriptions. The principles of WWW commu nication used in this website can adapt to meet any educational need. The specialty of surgery is well suited to incorporation of online mul timedia education over the Internet to follow new developments in our field.