ISTM Electronic Communications Nuts and Bolts Primer

We have many new members in the society so would like to review the electronic services available. As with regular mail, different ISTM functions are carried out at different locations so be sure to send your e-mail to the correct place.

The entire text of the ISTM Travel Clinic Directory is available on-line, and a direct link from each listing that contains an e-mail address will allow someone viewing the listing to click and send a message directly to that clinic. Inclusion in the directory is not an automatic feature of membership. If you are not in the directory currently, send a request to the membership office at bcbistm@aol.com. Updates are done quarterly so your name will appear right away.

Direct links to the HomePages of about twenty ISTM member clinics that have their own HomePages. ISTM member clinics that want their HomePages to be linked from the ISTM page should submit their URLs to istm@geomed.dom.uab.edu.

The ISTM News Service. Excerpts from all WHO and CDC outbreak bulletins and press releases are posted daily and links to the entire articles on the WHO or CDC server are embedded in the text.

Informational text now includes: The brochure for ISTM-C7 meeting in Innsbruck in 2001, the membership brochure, and instructions for joining TRAVELMED, the ISTM listserv.

Society Publications: Complete text of NewsShare, the ISTM Newsletter, (submissions to eric.walker@virgin.net) and abstracts from the Journal of Travel Medicine.

ISTM E-Mail Directory

If you didn’t get the recent e-mailed ISTM Advisory on the Influenza outbreak in Alaska, we don’t currently have a valid e-mail address for you. All ISTM members occasionally get these advisories as well as infrequent ISTM notices. Maintaining an up-to-date e-mail directory is difficult and has been time consuming. Individual e-mail addresses change with much greater frequency than postal addresses, hand-written e-mail addresses on annual membership renewals are often difficult to decipher, and occasional members are reluctant to submit e-mail addresses to societies for fear of receiving ever increasing amounts of junk e-mail. If you didn’t get the recent message send us an e-mail from your preferred location so that the correct address can be extracted from the actual message. Submit to istm@geomed.dom.uab.edu.

TRAVELMED the ISTM Listserv

This is an unmoderated discussion group (350 participants at present) that members need to actively join. Being in the ISTM e-mail directory does not automatically enrol you in TRAVELMED; not everyone wants to receive the increased volume of e-mail that participation in TravelMed entails. Restriction of access to ISTM members ensures a higher quality discussion.

To join: in the body (not the subject line) of an e-mail message sent to listserv@yorku.ca type the words subscribe travelmed.

Once accepted for membership, you will automatically receive further instructions from the server. The vast majority of requests for participation come from non-members of ISTM. Each request to join has to be manually screened by a volunteer from the Electronic Communications Committee so there are delays in processing requests at times and some mistakes are made. Please remember that TravelMed is like the Journal or NewsShare, you only get one subscription per membership. You cannot have subscriptions from both your home and office e-mail address. If five people work in your clinic but there is only one ISTM membership you get one (not five separate) subscriptions to TravelMed.

Current TravelMed subscribers often have questions on what to do when e-mail addresses change or they have trouble with some aspect of TravelMed.

David O Freedman, MD Chair, ISTM Electronic Communications Committee