For the practicing surgeon, there is nothing more powerful than understanding what succeeds and avoiding what fails. To accomplish this on a daily basis requires experience, wisdom, and the benefits of other surgeons trial and error. We are all hungry to know what has worked for others and what will work tomorrow. In the past, we have gathered this fruit from many trees, usually from conferences, discussions with colleagues, and our traditional publications. Until now there were real limits on how much and what kind of information could be presented clearly in printed journals.
Technology offers new capacities and abilities.
The birth of the Internet is one of those rare technological revolutions that makes new things happen on a large scale. The transmission of digital information over ordinary phone lines has created a true revolution in communication, probably the single biggest revolution in human interaction since the invention of the television. With the creation of user-friendly software to navigate the Internet, a new way of commerce and information sharing is available to the whole globe. Medicine is a natural ally of this new medium. In early February of 1995, I took a personal tour of the existing Internet looking specifically for information about cardiothoracic surgery.