Otolaryngology on the net

Otolaryngology complaints represent more than half of all visits to general practitioners. Unfortunately, most medical programmes provide only superficial coverage of ear, nose, and throat (ENT) pathology. You can improve your understanding of the physiology and presentation of these diseases by visiting the following sites.

To learn about the physiology of special senses we recommend the London South Bank Medical School site (www.cf.ac.uk/biosi/staff/jacob/sensmnu.html), which gives units on olfaction, hearing, audio evoked potentials, taste, vision, and pheromones. You can check your knowledge with a short quiz. This is a key site to help you understand sound transmission and the auditory pathways. It provides excellent schemes.

Head and neck anatomy can be challenging, particularly the area of the larynx. For more insight into the anatomy, histology, biomechanics, physiology, and development of the larynx, we suggest you visit the Larynx project from McGill University (http://sprojects.mmi.mcgill.ca/larynx/Default.htm). The site comprises a multimedia approach to self directed learning in otolaryngology, with class notes and interactive clinical cases. The explanations are concise, but unfortunately the quality of histology images is not optimal.

Baylor College of Medicine also has an interesting site (www.bcm.edu/oto/studs/toc.html) which is complete and could be taken as a self taught course. It includes 15 chapters with learning objectives covering anatomy, head and neck examination, emergencies, and common diseases.

To anyone interested in head and neck pathology we strongly recommend the Ohio State University Medical Centre atlas of head and neck pathology (http://medicine.osu.edu/oto/atlas.html). With over 104 entries the site is very well done with excellent explanations on each topic. The histology images are of high quality and well labelled.

One of the major difficulties with otolaryngology lies in being able to recognise clinical pathologies. To help you do so, visit the medical student's ENT atlas from the University of Toronto (http://icarus.med.utoronto.ca/carr/atlas/atlasoutline.htm). The site comprises 40 entries providing excellent images of ear, nose, oropharyngeal, laryngeal, tracheal, and neck pathologies.

Anyone interested in voice disorders should visit the Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center website at www.thevoicecenter.org/. It offers good images of laryngeal pathology and has a helpful glossary of terms. It also provides short articles on reflux and voice disorders, diseases of the larynx, singers and singing, and vocal cord nodules and polyps.

Finally, the guide to otolaryngology at http://www.bcm.edu/oto/others.html offers several links to academic programmes, organisations, educational sites, research sites, and patient education sites. The guide is thorough and offers links to sites around the world.