title: Medical mentoring via the evolving world wide web.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Mentoring, for physicians and surgeons in training, is advocated as an essential adjunct in work-based learning, providing support in career and non-career related issues. The World Wide Web (WWW) has evolved, as a technology, to become more interactive and person centric, tailoring itself to the individual needs of the user. This changing technology may open new avenues to foster mentoring in medicine. DESIGN, SYSTEMATIC REVIEW, MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: A search of the MEDLINE database from 1950 to 2012 using the PubMed interface, combined with manual cross-referencing was performed using the following strategy: ("mentors"[MeSH Terms] OR "mentors"[All Fields] OR "mentor"[All Fields]) AND ("internet"[MeSH Terms] OR "internet"[All Fields]) AND ("medicine"[MeSH Terms] OR "medicine"[All Fields]) AND ("humans"[MeSH Terms] AND English[lang]). Abstracts were screened for relevance (UJ) to the topic; eligibility for inclusion was simply on screening for relevance to online mentoring and web-based technologies.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Forty-five papers were found, of which 16 were relevant. All studies were observational in nature. To date, all medical mentoring applications utilizing the World Wide Web have enjoyed some success limited by Web 1.0 and 2.0 technologies.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  With the evolution of the WWW through 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0 generations, the potential for meaningful tele- and distance mentoring has greatly improved. Some engagement has been made with these technological advancements, however further work is required to fully realize the potential of these technologies.
authors: Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom. usman.jaffer@doctors.org.uk
authors: Usman
authors: U
authors: Jaffer
authors: Eyston
authors: E
authors: Vaughan-Huxley
authors: Nigel
authors: N
authors: Standfield
authors: Nigel W
authors: NW
authors: John
mesh_terms: D013502:General Surgery / Q000193:education*; D006801:Humans; D020407:Internet; D008611:Mentors