Declan Fox wrote:
>>William Gibson, in an interview on Irish radio in 1996 or 97 talked about a
new type of poverty--the info-poor.
What do we do about them?
Declan>>

There's info poor and info poor

Presumably no-one on this list is totally info poor - after all, we've all got
access to computers, can use internet software and can send email. This is by
no means universal amongst even *intelligent* people like GP's. However there
must be many, like me, who don't fully comprehend the finer points of every
techie posting and does that matter?

I think that in the phrase *information technology* the adjective should be
dominant. If the information the technology handles is not interesting, of
sound quality and germane then the technology is futile. I think the job of
most of us is to ensure that the information is first rate and to leave the
technology to those who find it interesting whilst knowing enough of what
their talking about to be able to ask the occasional intelligent question.

I don't think IT is a special case. We all use and enjoy things we don't fully
understand. Cars, radios and TV's are prime examples. Would we use any of them
better if we understood exactly how they worked - I think not. In fact with
all of these items we need to understand them less now than ever before. When
cars and radios were first introduced they were so unreliable and difficult to
use you had to understand them in some detail so that you could get them
working and fix them when they went wrong. That is no longer true and I
wouldn't be surprised if at some point all of these items are supplied
entirely *maintenance-free* and hermetically sealed.

An even more apposite analogy I think is music. A Bach fugue is a marvellously
complex achievement of the human mind and spirit and to appreciate it fully
you do need to have some understanding of what a fugue is and how it is
constructed but not to the extent that you could compose one yourself and you
could easily allow your appreciation of the composer's technique to get in the
way of your appreciation of the music itself.

I think that IT will become more and more accessible and easy to use. As with
the motor car you won't need more than some basic understanding of the
technology to get all that you need out of it. It does mean that you'll have
to be able to trust your informatics expert to advise you well - but then you
already have to trust a lot of people to do things for you that you can't do
yourself - car mechanics, architects, lawyers, surgeons and .....composers!

It' s only natural that IT starts off by attracting IT buffs just as the first
car drivers were all mad enthusiasts who could talk for hours about valve
clearances and compression ratios; but now both cars and IT involve the
majority and the issues around them are much wider than purely technical ones.
After all who created the Millenium Bug but the IT experts? 

I think some of the techie postings are of some general interest - to me
anyway - but very little of it is vital to General Practice in the sense that
Ahmad seems to think that the non-believers risk being cast into the
wilderness. I'm quite sure that with only 14 years to retirement I could
probably get away with the knowledge of IT that I already have. There are
other areas of knowledge that I couldn't afford to ignore like EBM,
developments in therapeutics, how the NHS is being restructured amongst
others. To facilitate this IT is just a tool, but a damn good one .

For the general GP reader I think that the techie side of GP-UK is
disproportionate. I don't wish it to disappear entirely but it is only one of
many interesting things about this aspect Health Care that GP-UK could be used
for.

Robert Upshall



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