The growing importance of AnSafe on the Gold Coast has necessitated a reorganisation of the email lists used for communication. The growth of lists has been a little haphazard, some people are on multiple lists, some on none, and audiences are being refined and redefined.

Please bear with us over the next few weeks as these things are sorted out.

Links to winners of the ANZCA media awards, Adult Edutainment at its best!

Inside the mysterious world of Propofol, the drug that killed Michael Jackson

Anaesthetists call for restrictions on drug used in cough medicine

Status Update: Seems to be working, but please contact me if you notice any problems, especially with slow emails from the email lists.

The company that I pay to host GCAPE has decided to remove the email list software from their servers. As a result the GCAPE website and the Announcements and Ansafe email lists may be unavailable while I come up with an alternative.

I am unlikely to get things sorted out before the email lists are removed so some down time will be inevitable.

Bloggers wanted for GCAPE Website

• Do you keep abreast of current developments in Anaesthesia?
• Are you a regular reader of a favourite journal?
• Have you just returned from an enlightening conference or workshop?
• Do you like to share your knowledge and opinions?

If so, then please consider sharing your thoughts and experience on GCAPE.

I would like to see GCAPE become the “go to” website for Gold Coast Anaesthetists for local events, workshops, and up-to-date anaesthesia intelligence. To achieve this I will need some help from people willing to write and post to the blog.

With half a dozen volunteers contributing a post or two every month, there will be fresh content available every few days on the GCAPE website. This will also allow me extra time to deal with the mundane nerdiness of maintaining the site.

Only basic computer and literacy skills are required, along with the dedication to spare an hour or two a month to author your posts. Please contact me if you are willing and able to help.

Ian Cameron

Why do you have to register to access some parts of GCAPE?

Well, there are a few reasons.

Firstly, I’m hoping that I’ll be less likely to be accused of copyright infringement or piracy if I only allow registered users to download content. I don’t want GCAPE to become a worldwide repository for bootleg journal articles, which would also impact GCAPE download and bandwidth quotas.

Secondly, spam. When the site first went live I had a contact form that emailed comments to me. Within hours I was being hit with spam. This is also why I haven’t published my email address, and have a rather unhelpful note just to contact me if you need further information. If you need to contact me, then you’ll already know how.

And finally, there is just some stuff that needs to stay private within the local anaesthetic community. When the discussion forums launch in a month or two they will be locked down tight, anaesthetists only!

So, sorry about the hassle. Personally, I hate having to register for websites, so it’s not a decision I took lightly. Most web browsers will remember log in user names and passwords, and you can always check the “remember me” box to stay logged in for a couple of weeks.

Email lists facilitate email communication between large groups of people, and are a feature of GCAPE.

You are probably familiar with Peter’s email messages that notify us of the Friday night education sessions that he organises. You’ll notice at the start of each message that there is a long list of email addresses for the recipients. It’s quite a bit of work maintaining the list of addresses, and it is difficult if you want to send a reply to all the same people who received the original message.

An email list gets around these problems by storing a list of all the email addresses on a computer server, which then sends an individual email message to each subscriber on the list. Subscribers can join or leave the list by sending email commands to the list server or via a web page, can choose to receive individual or digests of messages, and can view archives of old messages.

Privacy is improved as well, as your email is not being broadcast in every message sent to every recipient. The system is “closed”, so you can’t send email to the list if you aren’t on the list. This prevents spam being sent through the list.

Here is Wikipedia’s article on email lists;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_mailing_list

So if you would like to have your name put on a GCAPE email list, head over to the email list page and sign up.

If you would like to start your own email list on GCAPE, please contact me and I’ll help you out.

The Gold Coast Anaesthetic Project Exchange (GCAPE) is an information and resource sharing website for Gold Coast Anaesthetists.

It’s currently under construction, and will hopefully be launched by late 2014.  Initial features will include;

• This blogging site, for comments and updates from various projects around the coast,
• Private discussion forums, for the discussion and exchange of ideas and information,
• Email lists to facilitate communication, and,
• A file repository for documents, journal articles, and other educational material.

(NOTE: Accessing the different sections requires separate registrations. Once registered you can choose to stay logged in between sessions.)

If you would like to be involved, please contact Ian Cameron.