Netlines

BMJ 1997;315:529 (30 August)

Note: The BMJ can't guarantee the currency or continued maintenance of URLs or web sites (aside from its own) that appear in Netlines. If a link to a third-party site fails, please consult your favorite search engine. If a BMJ link fails, please send us feedback

Netlines

The medical establishment on the web

Most of the royal medical colleges now have a presence on theweb: the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh on http://www.rcpe.ac.uk/, the RoyalCollege of Surgeons of England on http://www.rcseng.ac.uk, The Royal Collegeof Surgeons of Edinburgh on http://www.rcsed.ac.uk/welcome.htm,the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland on http://www.rcsi.ie/,the Royal College of Psychiatrists on http://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/,the Royal College of General Practitioners on http://www.rcgp.org.uk/, theRoyal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists on http://www.rcog.org.uk/, andthe Royal College of Anaesthetists on http://www.ncl.ac.uk/~nrcoa/. Each web site provides general information on therelevant college, with specific information on its education,research, and college services. The Royal Society of Medicinecan be found on http://www.roysocmed.ac.uk/. Sadly, I can findno evidence of a web presence for the General Medical Council norfor my own college, the Royal College of Pathologists.

The power of plug-ins

After surfing the web for a while, you can become blaséand think that you have seen it all. I was recently shockedout of such complacency when I installed some new plug-ins into myweb browser. These small pieces of software add extra functionsto your web browser, so that, for example, it can play moviesor sounds or display molecular structures within a web page—fora full list of plug-ins see BrowserWatcher's Plug-In Plaza (http://browserwatch.internet.com/plug-in.html).
I installed HotSauce (http://hotsauce.apple.com/), which allowsyou to navigate through the web by flying through a virtual3-D space (termed XSpace). It certainly gives a fresh perspectiveon the web—as the promotional material says, "Why surfwhen you can fly?" While flying through the XSpace of the PlantCell Biology site (http://plantcell.lu.se/), I experienced anothershock of the new when I came across a web page (http://plantcell.lu.se/Research/lhcii_mov.html)that not only displayed an embedded QuickTime movie of the rotating3-D structure of a protein—accessible because I had installedthe QuickTime plug-in (http://quicktime.apple.com/)—butalso played Bach's Fugue in G minor in the background. Never has net-surfingbeen so civilised.

The Dearing report on line

Even as wired a journal as the BMJ sometimes slips up. In theissue of 2 August it pointed out that you can obtain a "dead-tree" versionof the 1700 page Dearing report on the future of higher educationfor £135. The BMJ forgot to mention that you can accessthe entire report for free on the web on http://www.leeds.ac.uk/educol/ncihe/.That way you avoid lugging five volumes around, and you caneven search the entire report on line. Read what Dearing hasto say about the UK Joint Academic Network (JANET) on http://www.leeds.ac.uk/educol/ncihe/nr_169.htmandhttp://www.leeds.ac.uk/educol/ncihe/nr_207.htm .And you can see what the National Union of Students thinks ofthe report on http://www.nus.org.uk/dearnews.html.

Anaesthetics on the web

Netlines is grateful to Steve Yentis for providing the followingstarting places for exploring anaesthetics on the web: his departmentalweb page on http://www.cxwms.ac.uk/Academic/Anaes/mdahome.html, Wright'sAnaesthesia and Critical Care Resources on the Internet on http://www.eur.nl/FGG/ANEST/wright/contents.html,and the Virtual Anaesthesia Textbook on http://www.gasnet.eur.nl/mirror/vat/VAT.html.

Netpoints: Piloting patient attitudinal surveys on the web

Developing surveys to elicit patients' attitudes is difficult, time consuming, and costly. To pilot an attitudinal questionnaire for women in families affected by endometriosis, we constructed a web site (http://www.well.ox.ac.uk/endometriosis) with a consent page followed by 25 multiple choice questions and six free response questions. We then sent a single invitation to participate in the study to over 700 members of an internet mailing list called WITSENDO, which is open to anyone with an interest in endometriosis.

We recorded responses via email directly into a database for analysis. In one month we received 81 hits, from 74 individuals, and 54 responses to the survey. Response rates to the multiple choice questions ranged from 48% to 100%, with only six questions answered less than 95% of the time. We assumed these differences identified poorly constructed questions, which we then modified based on these pilot observations. We thought that we could easily determine participants' nationalities from the computer host names recorded with their replies. Ten (19%) of the respondents' computers did not have host names, only internet protocol addresses. Although we used specialised software to trace these addresses, the task was technically difficult and we do not recommend it.

Our method elicited many responses in a short time. We received 42 (78%) replies within one day of emailing our invitation to WITSENDO members, about 10% of whom accessed our web site. Our invitation could have easily been overlooked given WITSENDO's high message volume. Multiple invitations spaced several days apart would have increased participation. We believe the web is a powerful resource for developing surveys in a quick and effective manner.

Marc A Suchard, Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford OX3 7BN (marc.suchard@well.ox.ac.uk)

Stephanie Adamson, Nuffield Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, University of Oxford, John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford OX3 9DU

Stephen Kennedy, Nuffield Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, University of Oxford (skennedy@worf.molbiol.ox.ac.uk)

Mark Pallen, email m.pallen@qmw.ac.uk web page http://www.qmw.ac.uk/~rhbm001/mpallen.html

Add to CiteULike CiteULike Add to Complore Complore Add to Connotea Connotea Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us Add to Digg Digg Add to Reddit Reddit Add to StumbleUpon StumbleUpon Add to Technorati Technorati Twitter What's this?

Relevant Article

Epidemiological data can be gathered with world wide web: Gunther Eysenbach and Thomas L Diepgen
BMJ 1998 316: 72. [Extract] [Full Text]

This article has been cited by other articles:

Wyatt, J. C (2000). When to Use Web-based Surveys. J Am Med Inform Assoc 7: 426-430 [Full text]
Eysenbach, G., Diepgen, T. L (1998). Epidemiological data can be gathered with world wide web. BMJ 316: 72-72 [Full text]