Doctors online: "Like flies to honey".

In 1995most internet usage was in the United States. Physicians and academic researchers in North America waited two weeks for the latest issue of The BMJ to arrive by post. Richard Smith, editor of The BMJ at the time of the website’s launch, describes himself as a “natural early adopter of not only things that do turn out to be significant but also things that turn out to be crazy.” He adds: “It seemed to me the internet was going to have tremendous reach, that it offered possibilities of reaching out to a completely new audience. In those very early days the main users of the internet were US academics, and historically we had always tried to reach out to the US.” Smith urged his BMJ colleagues to discover all they could about the internet. At the time Ronald Laporte, now an emeritus professor at the University of Pittsburgh, had just published an editorial in The BMJ, “Global health and the information superhighway,” outlining the internet’s potential to connect public health practitioners worldwide through data sharing, email, and online journals. Tony Delamothe, deputy editor, says: “When it was published he said, ‘I’m really grateful you published that editorial, but it’s clear you understand nothing about this new world. I’m organising a study day in Washington. Why don’t you come over and hear about what’s happening?’ “Nobody really had a clue at the time, so I flew to Washington and spent time with people from NASA and the World Health Organization and the people making the website for the White House. On the plane back I filled a pad with all the wonderful things we could do. “It was like the industrial revolution, being in at the beginning of something profound. You felt something big was happening, something groundbreaking and wonderful. “We recognised the prime users of the internet were American academics. But it was the world wide web, and the whole world was out there.” Evolution