Whether in office billing or playing Pac Man, home computers are often part of a surgeon's life. Predictably, they soon will be even more important as a new form of surgical education. Strictly speaking, computer programs might not be considered fair game for inclusion in a book review section of a journal, but, in fact, a computer can be used as another form for printing. As such, it may come as a surprise that such programs are not yet available for teaching surgery.
Appleton-Century-Crofts is the first publisher out of the blocks to provide a commercially available medical and surgical educational program, designed primarily for medical students and residents. The race inevitably will grow to proportions equivalent to that of the Boston Marathon.
Called Hippocrates I and II, the two disks, now available for use in an Apple II computer, each contain an initial presentation of ten problem cases, including