| On
19th February 2002 at the Oxford meeting, Dr Colin Clelland
spoke about the information superhighway, or World Wide Web, and its
current and potential uses for cervical screening. Search engines
signpost local and global information on service provision. One-to-one
and one-to-many communications applications offer synchronous and
asynchronous exchanges about issues on cervical screening. Electronic
journals hold out facilities for distance learning.
Both health
professionals and the general public with a special interest in
cervical screening can benefit from shared information searches
on the web.
Resources
for health professionals include:
- electronic
access to societies,
- information
on national guidelines and protocols,
- research
data,
- evidence-based
practice,
- newsgroups
and bulletin boards, and
- direct communication
by e-mail to primary carers and local co-ordinating groups.
For the general
public, user-friendly attractive websites, using plain language,
offer answers to specific questions.
Resources
for the general public range from
- NHS website
(cancerscreening.nhs.uk), through
- Trust and
Health Authority sites,
- general websites
such as Nuffield Institute for Health and Marie Stopes International,
to
- websites
run by individuals such as Dr Clelland's 'Unofficial guide to
cervical screening' (www.cervicalcytology.co.uk).
- The UK National
Screening Committee gives good basic information. For women who
have had an abnormal result and whose perceived risk of developing
cervical cancer (and anxiety about it) has increased, 'Cervical
Cancer and HPV Community' and 'The Juliet Trust' websites offer
both information and support.
For us
- electronic
searching of key journals via PubMed such as Acta Cytologica and
Cytopathology enable refined searches over a greatly reduced time
period compared to library searches.
- University
College London offers an interactive medium. Any of us can register
to participate in the educational slide quiz, submit our diagnostic
guesses on the images displayed on our screens at home, and receive
answers at our private e-mail addresses at the end of the month
- Cytopathnet,
a US website, offers an image based learning resource which is
as easily accessible as the books on our shelves at work. My own
opinion is that the quality of electronic images at Cytopathnet
compares favourably with those in our atlases.
- Usenet groups
offer a valuable debating ground for issues that affect us all.
The NAC has recently launched such a forum accessible from their
website. If you want to air any concerns or questions that you
have, visit the site, register and submit your message.
In the 17th
century, the new capability to produce multiple copies of printed
material changed the nature of 'sharing' of scientific ideas and
its rationality. It sanctioned the concept coined by the Royal Society
of remote witnesses in 'an invisible college'. For health professionals
today, electronic communications suggest another character change
in the growing number of 'virtual universities'.
Dr Clelland's
own website features useful hyperlinks. The sheet that he distributed
to delegates at the Oxford meeting is printed at the back of this
Newsletter. I have made a few additions. The good news for us is
that Dr Clelland has joined the TVCS committee, and given enough
spare time, his interest in IT promises a future TVCS website.
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