Internet e l'aggiornamento professionale del medico di medicina generale

The rapid advances in communication and information technology, and the deep impact on the daily life of everybody, both at the South and North of the world, have important implications for health care and medical education. However, the increase in sophisticated communication techniques has not always coincided with improved quality or a better approach to people health needs. In fact, health information on the Internet has often been found unreliable and not evidence-based. Health professionals (and lay people) today have the opportunity to surf the web for many information resources of both primary (books, textbooks, manuals, compendia, journals) and secondary (databases, libraries, registries) type. The challenge now lies in the medical education field. Current efforts are underway to develop more sophisticated, computer-assisted, learning systems and packages (campus networks, virtual campus, medical and biomedical gateways, interactive, virtual-reality simulations, etc.), indicating a shift from information to "formation". The efficacy and efficiency of this form of education, however, need (once again) to be adequately defined, especially for post-doctoral continuing education and in primary care.