Editorial

E. Learning in Laparoscopic Surgery

Mushtaq Chalkoo^*
Department of Minimal Access Surgery, Govt. Medical College Srinagar Kashmir, India

^*Corresponding author: Mushtaq Chalkoo, Department of Minimal Access Surgery, Govt. medical college Srinagar Kashmir, India

Published: 18 Jun, 2016
Cite this article as: Mushtaq Chalkoo. E. Learning in Laparoscopic Surgery. Clin Surg. 2016; 1: 1068.

Editorial

One of the best things that happened in the domain of surgery was the advent of minimal access surgery and laparoscopy. It was a major breakthrough in this art of healing when many do’s got changed to dont’s and converse. All applauds to the pioneers, researchers, innovators and front row workers who worked hard in this venture to establish and explore the newer and newer horizons in the field of laparoscopic surgery. As of now we have come across long distance with an unbelievable success . Today we are celebrating 25 years of undaunting success; the silver jubilee in laparoscopic surgery. Once again we all need to join hands together for a big applause to all those pioneers who were abused, criticised, castigated, ridiculed and even jailed for creating a new religion in the field of surgery. The laparoscopic surgeon should have optimum knowledge about minimal access surgery. This has become possible with information technology. The computers combined with high speed internet have provided a great opportunity for every person to access the information regardless of their location in the world, the economic background or institutional affiliations. The world has shrunk into a global village and knowledge is at your doorstep. In our field, this has led to the evolution of large number of internet or web based virtual universities providing distance education. They stand as invaluable tools for trouble shooting, continuing surgical education, referencing and publishing. Hence it becomes mandatory for all those in this field to acquire knowledge and practical know how with respect to computers and their effective usage in day to day surgical practice. Today bsnl and several private players have provided broad band internet access to all places in India there by making information accessible in remotest areas.
The web and internet based learning has become a useful tool in surgical education. It is for the information of all laparoscopic surgeons that various videos and lectures on different procedures and topics are freely available on different websites. In this regard iages website (WWW.IAGES. ORG IN), is very informative and exhaustive. The home page portrays the executive committee members with contact details, member list, training centres, upcoming conferences and events, latest articles, videos and workshop guidelines . It is also linked to important informative websites like jmas, eaes, sages, icmr.
Web surg, (www.websurg.com), it is a virtual university based in Strasbourg,france founded by professor Jacques marescaux. It provides online surgical training by way of lectures, videos and articles.
Other websites for operative videos are Asia pacific hernia society, aphs, www.aphernia.com and www.orlive.com and www.youtube.com. One can enter the procedure of choice and view it. The most informative medical literature is also available now on (www.iages.org.in/journal) this journal contains articles dedicated to minimal access surgery free to view, download in pdf format. It is indexed with Medline and pubmed.
The United States national library of medicine or (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed). This is the most popular and exhaustive medical literature search engine. It searches all articles across several medical journals that are indexed with it.
The Cochrane library (www.cochrane.org) it is an international network of people established in 1993, helping healthcare professionals with evidence based medical knowledge by conducting systematic reviews of literature.
E-medicine/meds cape (www.medscape.com). This is regarded as virtual textbook founded in 1996, contains an exhaustive collection of text articles on all medical specialities.