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| Year : 2001 | Volume
: 12
| Issue : 4 | Page : 552 |
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| Medicine on the Internet |
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Anil K Saxena1, BR Panhotra2
1 Consultant Nephrologist, King Fahd Hospital Hofuf, Al-Hasa 31982, Saudi Arabia
2 Consultant Microbiologist, King Fahd Hospital Hofuf, Al-Hasa 31982, Saudi Arabia
Click here for correspondence address and email
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How to cite this article:
Saxena AK, Panhotra B R. Medicine on the Internet. Saudi J Kidney Dis Transpl 2001;12:552 |
To the Editor:
The practice of medicine is dependent on the sum total of medical knowledge, which in turn is based on an unending chain of scientific discoveries, clinical observations, analysis and interpretation. The advances in medicine depend on the acquisition of such information. The Internet serves the purpose of dissemination of data in the modern era of technological advances.
The boom in the use of the World Wide Web or Internet, through personal computers has made an important impact on many practicing physicians. The net provides almost instantaneous availability of a wide range of information directly to the desk of the physician at any time of day or night and from anywhere in the world. It holds enormous potential for providing useful upto-date practice guidelines, information on the state-of-art conferences, symposia, journal contents, textbook chapters and direct communication with other physicians and specialists. Moreover, it also gives opportunity to the practicing physicians to join various continuing medical education (CME) courses online.
It is likely that most medical journals will ultimately be online, yet; there is one important caveat. Some people could post, unverified data on the Internet, and others may supply unpublished data. In this regard, it is relatively easy to publish virtually anything on the Internet by using either homepage or a file server, thus circumventing the peer review process that is essential feature of quality publications and authentic information. Therefore, physicians who search the net for medical information must be aware of this potential for misinformation. Not withstanding this limitation, appropriate use of the Internet is revolutionizing information access for physicians and will be very helpful in the practice of medicine.
Finally, I heartily congratulate the Saudi Center for Organ Transplantation (SCOT) and the Editorial Board of the Saudi Journal of Kidney Diseases and Transplantation for their efforts in making the Journal accessible on line through www.scot.org.sa
Correspondence Address:
Anil K Saxena
Consultant Nephrologist, King Fahd Hospital Hofuf, Al-Hasa 31982
Saudi Arabia
 Source of Support: None, Conflict of Interest: None  | Check |
PMID: 18209402 
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