Multimedia CD-ROM on Digestive Endoscopy and Gastroenterology: Part 2
With the ever increasing volume of diagnostic and therapeutic endoscopy, teaching materials to disseminate knowledge to the practicing gastroenterologist and student has, with a few exceptions, been lacking. The large storage capacity, multimedia capability, and versatility of the CD-ROm disk make it the perfect tool for gastrointestinal endoscopy.
The nomenclature of the World Society for Digestive Endoscopy (OMED) forms the basis of the NORMEDIA CD-Gastro on CD-ROM. Part II of this educational device by Professors Maratka and Armengol-Miró deals with pathology of the esophagus, stomach, and duodenum along with therapeutic endoscopy and is an excellent addition to Part I (Esophagoscopy and Gastroscopy). As in the inaugural CD-ROM in this series, and extraordinary number of schematic drawings and color photographs are presented and meticulously labeled. The corresponding text offers concise, explicit definitions of gastrointestinal pathology.
The authors provide a number of video sequences attached to certain photographs. Although many of these demonstrate good examples of diagnostic and therapeutic procedures, a few are of marginal quality and limited educational value. As in Part I of this series, lack of accompanying audio during video presentation to explain the technical aspects of the images is a significant omission by the authors and should be included in subsequent editions.
This CD-ROM provides the endoscopist in clinical and academic practice with the possibility to easily and quickly access an exhaustive amount of reference data for classification and confirmation of common and unusual findings. It is believed that this teaching device will be an indispensable teaching tool for gastroenterology and surgical fellowship programs and an introduction to in-depth endoscopic pathology.
The software remains user friendly, will pull down menus to easily access desired files. In addition, menus for editing, search, and annotation are available to modify or add the available database information. The disk is IBM compatible; it is available in several international languages, including Spanish, German, French and Italian. Minimum computer requirements include i486SX processor, 256 color graphic card, 4 megabyte RAM, CD-ROM drive, and MS Windows 3.1 operating system.
Upcoming editions will include both diagnostic and therapeutic colonoscopy and ERCP. No plans have currently been made to include endoscopic ultrasound; this would bet yet another major omission if not adequately represented in subsequent updates. Nonetheless, the authors have already made a significant contribution to the community of gastroenterologists and endoscopists in providing a comprehensive review on normal endoscopic anatomy, pathology, and therapeutic options.
Marc F. Calalano, MD
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Comment of the publisher: The video quality has been essentially improved in the full version by using the new Quicktime technology. As the CD addresses the large medical community that is equipped with standard computers, sound has been omitted purposely, considering that the majority of hospital computers so far are rarely equipped with sound cards. When that situation has changed, sound is scheduled. The topic is available as a highly recognized series of 5 audio-visual video cassettes.
