Internet-Based Medical Education

The Internet is revolutionizing medical education and medical practice by enabling teachers and students to utilize and integrate many forms of data in ways that cannot be done via classic textbooks. In cardiovascular medicine, dynamic images are essential for understanding cardiac function, coronary anatomy, and myocardial perfusion, as well as for learning cardiovascular pathophysiology and the typical and atypical presentations of disease states. Cardiosource, an educational Web site developed by the American College of Cardiology, illustrates the ways in which the Internet is being used to improve medical education and practice.