How the Internet is altering medical journalism and education - A survey and discussion

Because of a burgeoning Internet and increasing number of online electronic journals, the way in which psychiatric practitioners are educated is chang ing. To better characterize these changes, the author conducted a survey of sources for obtaining medical information from the present and from 5 year s ago among 55 academic psychiatrists and psychiatric residents. Comparison s show an average 14.0% +/- 19.0% decrease in use of print media and a 16.2 % +/- 15.7% increase in the use of the Internet its a source of psychiatric information (P = 0.001). No significant change was found in use of live or videotaped lectures, classes, and conferences. The author discusses how th ese changes affect continuing psychiatric education, various ramifications of websites' pre-publication posting, and controversies of posting "pseudos cientific," non-reviewed papers, outlining advantages and disadvantages of print and electronic publishing.