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Abstract

The Internet is changing medicine and web 2.0 is the current buzz word in the worldwide web dictionary. According to Dean Giustini in British Medical Journal, web 2.0 means ?the web as platform? and ?architecture of participation?. It is the web or internet information which is created by the users themselves. Human beings are social animals. By definition ?Social? refers to a characteristic of humans. It refers to the interaction of person with other persons and to their collective co-existence, irrespective of whether they are aware of it or not, and whether the interaction is voluntary or involuntary. A sense of community is an essential need of everyone including radiologists. However, in our current busy schedules actual personal interactions have become more or less diminished. Radiology is lonely as compared with clinical practice, particularly with increasing trend towards teleradiology with absence of team of peers and professional experts to discuss and share. Here, Internet comes to rescue and addresses this need of radiologists for connecting with each other. Web 2.0 allows one to share research ideas and establish a new collaboration. One can post and browse radiology jobs, submit and read the latest radiology news, participate in discussion forums, read radiology-related articles and browse radiologic images and cases. There are general web 2.0 places like facebook, twitter, linkedin, pinterest, google +, which radiologists can utilize and there are some radiology specific portals as well. Unique uses of the blog and wiki platforms have been made in radiology in the past. Social networking allows sharing knowledge simply and fast. In radiology, there has been a growing trend in emergence of online Radiology community networks, which is now an integral part of Radiology Web version 2.0. These new tools facilitating online social networking ensure that there is no software to learn or download, and there are no requirements for membership to become an editor. This is only a beginning of democratization of knowledge in the field of radiology and surely the future looks exciting.

Biography

Sumer Kumar Sethi is Editor-in-Chief of Internet Journal of Radiology. He has a keen interest in Web 2.0 technologies and in maintaining his famous radiology blog, Sumer?s radiology Site (http://sumerdoc.blogspot.com), which has been featured in multiple international journals.