Abstract
Introduction
Books and scientific journals were the main and only sources of information in medicine and the sciences until some years ago. We have witnessed a tremendous increase in the number of resources where one can find the latest research and medical education on a specific topic. During our careers, we face many situations in which relevant and up-to-date information becomes necessary, during actual patient care, as well as when reviewing hot topics in gastroenterology, writing papers, preparing talks or seeking credits in the field of our speciality. The huge amounts of information make it sometimes almost impossible to digest all of the interesting data that are published daily. Some organisations, like United European Gastroenterology (UEG), have launched internet-based resources where guidelines and consensus documents are easy to access, together with video recordings, online courses and interactive case presentations. This wide range of options may be useful for many of the above situations and give us an extra push in our medical education activities.
At the tip of your fingers
Information is so extensive, intensive and readily available that it sometimes becomes easy to get lost in it. It is important to keep in mind a series of tips that can allow you to navigate this scary landscape and make your journey a rewarding one.
Refine your question
A short moment of reflection will help you understand better what you are after. Do not renounce paper and pen: put what you need to find down in writing, identify redundancies and help refine the search.
Let the system help you
Many websites, notoriously those developed by medical journals, but also many others, allow for the setting of alerts that will generate periodic emails. This is especially useful when trying to follow new research in a particular field of knowledge. If your interests are well defined, this saves an enormous amount of time.
Spend time on the web but do not waste it
Every time that you visit a webpage or a website, ask yourself what you are doing there. Is it a sponsored site? Do medical or academic authorities endorse it? Who are the main contributors? Are you looking for an orthodox take on your question, or do you want to explore less established views?
Follow the path … but also stray away from it
Some websites, such as Uptodate (www.uptodate.com), Medscape (www.medscape.com), WebMD (www.webmd.com), Mdconsult (www.mdconsult.com) and Emedicine (www.emedicine.com) are a great help when searching for structured medical information or trying to do a multi-journal search. However, do not forget the sources; a visit to PubMed (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov) will let you ‘talk’ to the sources. Also, try to find different points of view by looking for alternative sources such as patient organization websites or less mainstream academic organizations. If you are not a native English speaker, look for information in your own language and from your area, which will often adapt better to your needs.
Medical organisations: UEG
Many medical organisations are making a tremendous effort to promote information, increase resource availability and expand e-learning. Although some of these are only accessible to members, most of them are free to consult. A perfect example are the e-resources that you can find on the UEG website (https://www.ueg.eu/education/latest-news/), might be useful for young (and not so young!) gastroenterologists.
UEG Library
This can be accessed at https://www.ueg.eu/education/library and contains lecture recordings from UEG Week, consensus documents, position papers and clinical practice guidelines, just one click away. This platform allows access to more than 31,000 items from the main societies and international meetings in our speciality. Users can sort the search by conference, year, topic and type of presentation.
UEG 24/7
Did you attend the last UEG Week? Did you miss a session? A similar feature to the UEG Library offers access to the most relevant presentations (speaker and slides) from UEG Week 2017 (https://www.ueg.eu/education/ueg-week-24-7/ueg-week-247/). You can watch over 550 video recordings from 125 sessions and benefit from up-to-date data in your field of interest.
Online courses
Gastroenterology has evolved a lot in recent years, with an increasing grade of subspecialisation. This makes it difficult to keep up with the latest advances in each field of expertise. UEG offers online courses about common questions in our daily practice, covering urgent clinical situations (upper gastrointestinal bleeding), practical tips about some frequent procedures (polypectomy and liver biopsy), highly prevalent disorders (constipation, dyspepsia, irritable bowel syndrome and coeliac disease) and recently developed procedures, such as foecal microbiota transplantation (https://www.ueg.eu/education/online-courses/).
Mistakes in …
‘To err is human, to forgive, divine’ – Alexander Pope.
As Alexander Pope acknowledged, we all make mistakes, but sometimes you may learn even more from them than from our successes. This section was born as a result, and this is probably the reason for its popularity! Authors review the most common errors in the management of frequent clinical situations, such as acute pancreatitis, inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. It is a must-read section for clinicians and researchers of all ages!
Another example: the European Crohn’s and Colitis Organisation
The European Crohn’s and Colitis Organisation (www.ecco-ibd.eu) has a whole section of its webpage dedicated to education. Under this heading (https://www.ecco-ibd.eu/education.html), users can access congress contents, e-courses and material offered during the organisation’s educational activities. The main consensus papers published in the Journal of Crohn’s and Colitis are available for download, as well as patient guidelines. The user can hear podcasts or watch videos tackling specific areas of the IBD field (https://e-learning.ecco-ibd.eu/course/view.php?id=34#section-0). All of the e-learning activities are grouped under the same heading (https://www.ecco-ibd.eu/education/elearning.html) and include a powerful tool to search all of the educational content, together with congress materials, which are searchable according to the IBD curriculum.
The future
The future is already here. Peer-to-peer interactions. Immediate access to information, free from heavy, office-based access points. Patient education through portable devices and social media. Data analysis that describes your preferences and anticipates your needs. None of this is new, but we will see all of it grow in years to come. It will become more and more important to keep track of our main mission: to help the patient and society to get better health care and stand by our human congeners.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
None.
Conflict of interest
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.