Indian endocrine surgery websites are they comparable?

INTRODUCTION: In modern day surgical practice, patients and their relatives garner more knowledge through websites rather than direct interaction with the consultant physician. We aimed to assess whether Indian endocrine surgery websites matched with their counterparts abroad. MATERIALS & METHODS: We identified 60 endocrine surgery websites worldwide and 12 endocrine surgery websites maintained by trained endocrine surgeons from India. The website parameters, demographic data of the websites, rank, and other parameters were assessed using a professional website (www.Alexa.com). An endocrine surgeon along with a technical website advisor rated the content, presentation, and likes from a scale of 1-5 (1 minimum score and 5 maximum score). RESULTS: A total of 72 individual endocrine surgery websites, out of which 60 were from abroad and 12 were from India, were analyzed. A majority of foreign websites were ranked (43/60), whereas 2/12 Indian websites were ranked (P < 0.0001). Foreign websites had a better landscape profile. Except for pancreatic facts, which were significantly different (P = 0.006) between Indian and foreign websites, there was no significant difference in thyroid facts, parathyroid facts, adrenal facts, photographs, videos, postop advice, contact information, publications, and complications. CONCLUSION: Most parameters were comparable in both groups. Postoperative advice and complications were present in only a few websites. A well-designed endocrine surgery website can aid both the patient and the treating physician.

The technique of story-telling in thyroid diseases including surgery; useful or not.

INTRODUCTION: In the modern day busy clinical practice, the communication between patient/relative and caregiver is at a minimal level. The patients and relatives feel apprehensive when advised about surgical/interventional treatment. Storytelling is such a technique of health communication made in common man language and can operate in a virtual environment. This study aims to unveil the efficacy of storytelling technique on patients undergoing Hemithyroidectomy for benign cytology. MATERIALS & METHODS: A story of a lady (cartoon version), aged 25 years, with a benign solitary thyroid nodule (STN), who underwent uneventful hemithyroidectomy was depicted in this movie including the history, clinical examination, investigations, counseling, and the operative procedure, and the running time of the animation movie is 4 min. For developing this movie, high-end graphic work station and various multimedia authoring tools like Adobe Flash, Photoshop, Captivate, Maya and Final Cut Pro, were used. The story was shown to patients with clinical STN who were provisional candidates for surgery. The patients filled in the evaluation of multimedia animation questionnaire at the time of discharge. RESULTS: 60 patients participated in the study. One form was disqualified due to incomplete filling. Mean age was 35.45 ±â€¯12.8 years.55 (91.6%) were females. All patients were euthyroid. The mean weight of thyroid nodule was 40.80 ±â€¯20.79 g. The final histopathology was colloid in the majority. All participants found the movie useful. In the questionnaire, the mean score for improved understanding of the disease was 73.9 ±â€¯14.7, better organization of treatment was 78.6 ±â€¯13.1 stimulated interest in the relatives was 70.8 ±â€¯15.8 and saved unnecessary discussion with the consultant was 55.5 ±â€¯7.8. CONCLUSION: Story telling is a useful tool in health communication. With the widespread availability of high-speed internet and affordable mobile computing devices, story telling can be a useful tool to patients and relatives in decision making and in addition, saves valuable time of the treating consultant.