James C. Eisenach, M.D., Editor
Society for Obstetric Anesthesia and Perinatology
Author/Web Masters: Gerald A. Burger, M.D.
Information:(webmaster@soap.org)
In addition to sites relating to anesthesiology as a specialty, or medicine in general, many subspecialties and special interest organizations have their own websites. They have many characteristics in common, as I will present in this review of the SOAP site.
Quality of Information
Websites for subspecialty groups should address the mission of their organization and provide information of interest to their members. The SOAP site does a nice job of each. The mission statement appears in the first highlighted item; educational articles from the newsletter and reviews of previous meetings containing original reports and information are available, as are historical reports of interest to the membership. I especially enjoyed looking over the responses to questions addressed to the audience regarding practice patterns from the previous annual meeting of the society. Electronic registration to join the society is available, as is detailed information concerning next year's meeting and even some rudimentary information for patients. Information is presented in a clear and logical manner, with appropriate highlighting of new information or sections. I did wonder, however, how new some of these were because the date presented as last modification of the site was more than 6 weeks old.
Search Capability
Although no global searching capabilities are available, the list of links fits the site well, focusing on sites relevant to obstetric anesthesia, other subspecialty organizations in anesthesiology, general anesthesiology links, and even a link to PubMed, a very useful literature search site at the National Library of Medicine previously reviewed in this section.
Summary
In summary, I found the SOAP site to provide a lot of useful and information of interest to me as a member of the organization. I enjoyed looking over the previous year's meeting and the plans for next year, and found the links useful. You may want to check out your own group on the web for comparison. Some addresses I could easily find are American Society of Regional Anesthesia (www.asra.com), Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation (gasnet.med.yale.edu/apsf/), Society for Ambulatory Anesthesia (www.sambahq.org), Society of Cardiovascular Anesthesia (dacc.uchicago.edu/sca/), Society for Education in Anesthesia (www.anes.ccf.org:8080/sea/) and Society for Pediatric Anesthesia (www.uams.edu/spa).
Reviewer
James C. Eisenach, M.D.
Professor and Chair for Anesthesiology Research; Wake Forest University Medical Center; Winston-Salem, North Carolina
