Information
Information is the coin of the realm.
1987:
The full text of Robbins Pathology and the Merck Manual are presented to
medical students at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in HyperCard format.
Versions of these initial efforts are now available on the Internet.
1990:
In the April 1990 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association,
the editor, Dr. George Lundberg, a pathologist, indicated that the publication
day of JAMA had been moved back from Friday to Wednesday to allow readers
to receive the journal well in advance of the cover date and thus preclude
the dilemma of explaining a news report to their patients about an article
before the physician had had a chance to read it.
1998:
JAMA and 30 other journals are available in full text on the Internet.
Medical textbooks are distributed on CD-ROM.
Immediate coverage of the news is available.
2000:
Patients increasingly use the Internet and its future derivatives to plan
their health care.
Physicians must be computer literate and in charge of reviewed and edited
information about medicine in all aspects from the molecular to the behavioral.