Internet, as the largest international network of computers, is becoming the ultimate frontier to access information for health providers. This new communication technology have become a very useful and important educational tool.

Internet basic resources such as electronic mailing, discussion groups, file transfer and browsing the world wide web have gained powerful multimidia capability. In our days there is a continuous search for the most adequate "language" suitable to the efficient exchange of information through the internet. Meanwhile the most conventional formats such as papers, journals and books still find a place in this new virtual environment.

The appearance of online journals and e-magazines have prompted the development of electronic or virtual books in some areas of the medical knowledge and information.

The busy professional who invests little time searching the literature could find himself with a clinical practice that does not keep pace with recent technological advances. To stay updated in the discipline of Extracorporeal Technology includes access to printed periodical publications, books, regular meetings, congress assistance, digital database storage and Internet resources. Among these resources, the world wide web can be seen as an endless book, where a webpage can be considered the basic unit of information and provides links to other pages in the same directory, or in different sites and domains. New real time audio and video technology will permit us to collect, retrieve and exchange all kind of information as easy and effectively as in a personal demonstration or interview. Since anyone can publish in the Net online, electronic publications will strongly rely on new peer-review concepts, and authors, editors, and reviewers, will be required to adjust to the use of this new information technology.

The Virtual Textbook of Extracorporeal Technology (VTECT) is a collaborative project involving many individual around the world. Its goal is to create and maintain, using a familiar "textbook" style, a comprehensive set of links to the most relevant perfusion related internet information. Subjects that are not available will be specifically produced for the project. All material will be reviewed and updated by their authors. Obsolete material can be replaced at the discretion of the coordinators and/or editors. The principal objective is that the VTECT will become a large source of information available to perfusionists and other professionals involved in the care of the cardiac surgical patient.

The VTECT webpages need not to be host in a single directory, site or domain. On the contrary, pages will be linked to each other. Documents linked via VTECT have already been placed on internet by their authors (or publishers) for the benefit of the perfusion community. A centrally coordinated index will constitute the "Table of Contents" and will be host in our site. We also offer space to host any document intended to be a part of VTECT and not published elsewhere.

The different subjects will be separated in "Sections", "Parts" and "Chapters" in order to facilitate their classification, indexation and availability.

A group of colleagues will constitute the Committee of Management. These individuals will coordinate each Section and its chapters. Each Section will be composed of several chapters (as many as necessary); each chapter will be under the responsibility of one or more contributors.

It is our intention to involve as many colleagues as possible in order to make the VTECT truly international. As coordinators of this project we will invite some colleagues to share the work and responsibility involved with its preparation and completion. Volunteers are also welcomed. In the case you wish to to participate in this project, please let us know at: