Paediatric Surgeons Websurfers Bulletin

Introduction

Researchers and students are often confronted by either too much or too little information. The overwhelming amount of information on the Internet, with millions of sites already active is increasing at a logarithmic pace. The problem often arises that searching for some item of information results in not finding it. Finding the desired bit of information through the various search engines present in the web, can be sometimes difficult even to the skilled websurfer, not to mention the beginner. A survey on the evolution of Internet use in health care based on the experience of 1129 healthcare professionals applying the medical Net showed that the main obstacle encountered was the lack of time (56.14 %), and that the most burdening shortcoming of e-health experienced is the time-wasting information searches (58.89 %) ([1]). Not without a reason the new Internet produced job for retrieving information for a customer is called “data mining”!

This concept obviously applies to the small world of Paediatric Surgery. We can now boast a substantial number of websites where a busy paediatric surgeon could easily lose his enthusiasm on the net because of this plethora of information.

The scope of this paper is to offer Paediatric Surgeons who surf the Web an edited guide, a bulletin describing how to find information and data, with particular attention given to sites of educational value. Our aim is to compile an index of paediatric surgical information, a virtual textbook of Paediatric Surgery.

References

• 1 http://www.hon.ch/Survey/ResPoll/res_pollO.html. 
• 2 Lugo Vicente H. Internet resources and web pages for pediatric surgeons.  Semin Pediatr Surg. 2000;  9 11-18
• 3 Srinivas M, Inumpudi A, Mitra D K. The Internet and the paediatric surgeon.  Pediatr Surg Int. 1998;  14 208-211
• 4 Wulkan M L. Computers and the pediatric surgeon: a primer.  Semin Pediatr Surg. 2000;  9 2-5