Maximising the world wide web for high quality educational and clinical support to health and medical professionals in rural areas

Attracting and retaining medical and allied health professionals to rural and remote regions is a perennial problem, world-wide. It is exacerbated by the associated problem of providing high quality, cost-effective educational and clinical support to health professionals and trainees located in such areas. The world wide web is being used as a tool to address these twin problems to provide a means of communication, interaction and educational and clinical support to geographically dispersed and isolated pools of users. An interactive electronic notice board has been developed as a clinical problems' discussion forum to act as a venue for critical debate about clinical issues and to provide a searchable archive of information to assist in the management of clinical problems. A description of the forum will demonstrate the potential of the world wide web as a learning and a clinical support tool.