Ian C. Ellul

After months of long hard work and planning we have recently launched a new version of TheSynapse Portal (www.thesynapse.net).

Although the changeover happened in just one eventful afternoon, the process is still ongoing and we are still fine tuning the system.  Although most comments were highly encouraging, a tiny minority expressed scepticism to the need for such a change, given the already high standard of the service. After all, change is always a challenge, is never smooth and is always expensive…so why bother?

 

We bother because TheSynapse is deeply committed to provide members of all the medical professions with the news, services and resources they need to provide the best possible service to the most important member of the team  … the patient.

 

Like the older version, which is still available in its old form for those who wish to see how it looked back then, TheSynapse features news from most authoritative and reliable sources, as soon as they are released.  

 

eLearning is another important facet for TheSynapse and we are indeed very proud to have recently launched another eLearning module in collaboration with the Malta Foundation Programme. This module is entitled ‘Informed Consent to Medical Care’.  It fills us with further enthusiasm to have another three eLearning modules in progress and awaiting launch this year. We encourage you to participate.  You will find it an interesting experience and we promise to provide you with all the support we can offer.  We are also open to your ideas in the field of eLearning development.

 

TheSynapse Events section serves as a list of conferences and other events which have medical professionals as a target audience. For event organisers this section will not only serve as a promotional platform, but from a logistic perspective it will obviously help organisers avoid organising events on the same date.  For our members, this should provide a quick reference, one stop area for members. We invite organisers to list their forthcoming events and promote via TheSynapse. 

 

A new addition has been TS ADS which give you the opportunity to basically advertise any product or service to other users. There are many possibilities how one can make use of the service including but not limited to the availability or the need for locum services. The possibilities are, in reality, endless.  This service is not necessarily a giant step in terms of innovation as such but it encourages members to interact between themselves on TheSynapse platform. Indeed it has always been the aim of TheSynapse to act as a network for medical professionals and this was way before the advent of social networks.

 

Writing about user interaction I cannot fail to mention Share IT section. Members can share interesting medical links, videos and images. In the section you can also find a whole archive of articles from TheSynapse magazine and an archive of all articles and news published in TheSynapse website from many years back. This will be useful for those members  who regularly use TheSynapse services for their research purposes. 

 

Other services are being introduced which facilitate further interaction and networking – these will be rolled out in the coming months. These will include a forum, and a social networking section.

 

Love it or hate it, social networking is with us and dominates a substantial part of our lives. Each article of TheSynapse now has a ‘share’ button which members can use to share interesting articles to their social networking profile. 

 

Undoubtedly, two  of the most important services provided by TheSynapse are the eNews which is published every Saturday and painstakingly gives a synopsis of all news published during the week, and the equally informative TheSynapse eInfo which are sent out on a regular basis. 

 

For those who have not visited TheSynapse for some time, I would like to invite you to explore the network. For those who have yet to join, you are most welcome – your free registration is just a couple of clicks away.

 

For the past fifteen years TheSynapse has been in a process of regular development and several transformations.  We are never happy enough with the status quo and will continue to develop services that are useful to our members. This is the beginning of a new dawn.