Marty London's Cardiac Web Links

This is my first attempt at organizing a large amount of information I have found on the WWW related to cardiac, vascular, and thoracic anesthesia. I've been exploring the WWW for several years now and have come to several conclusions:

1. There is a whole lot of great stuff out there and a whole lot of fluff and junk. Sometimes it takes so long to find the good stuff it's not worth it. A good textbook and recent journal articles, in general, are still the best way to go for most of your study needs.

2. Having said that, there is valuable information that you can pull up faster than you can get to the library or lug a big textbook (i.e. Kaplan) around (and risk getting a hernia). In particular, there are clinical guidelines and practice parameters (i.e. SBE prophylaxis recommendations) that, in effect, are textbooks! A number of journals are on-line, either in part (i.e. teaser to get you to subscribe) or completely. UCSF Library has arrangements with many journals. If you can find an article in .PDF format (Abobe Acrobat format) you can print it out and it will look exactly like the printed journal. You can also save it to your hard disk for archival purposes.

3. PICTURES and VIDEO are out there! This is what I think is the best part of the WWW. In particular our cardiac surgical brethren have been real pioneers at this and the Society of Thoracic Surgeons has lots of great clinical information on their site.

4. A particular advantage of the pictures and video on the WWW are the "blow-by-blow" descriptions of cardiac surgical procedures that you will be involved in. Its often difficult to "soak in" all of the surgical details when you are in the O.R. Its nice to go back to the old computer and review what you saw. Surgeons definitely respect anesthesiologists who "keep up" with the surgical details!

5. My particular interest is in video presentation of TEE data via the WWW. I have a grant from the UCSF Library Instructional Technology Program to expand pilot work I've done on my TEE website. As I get started this summer on heavy duty "construction," I'll want all the input I can get from "you the viewer."

6. Finally, be sure to email me if any of these links "dies".

P.S. To get rid of that pesky "Tripod Member Page" Frame, just click the close button!