Welcome to the New PICU LIST!

Since March 1994, the PICU discussion list has been generously supported by the Medical College of Wisconsin, in Milwaukee. The list has been based on ListProc software, which was developed under the auspices of CREN. CREN ceased to exist in 2003, passing the ListProc torch to SourceForge, where it appears to have since lain largely dormant. It is worth noting that the world's first WWW site went live 7 months after the PICU list started up on ListProc. PedsCCM followed not long afterwards, in November 1995, when the WWW was one year old.

The old ListProc software served us well, has been infrequently interrupted by any technical problems, but over the years has been increasingly out of date. Users accustomed to Amazon.com are understandably unimpressed with the arcane and clunky ListProc text search and file retrieve commands via email, for examples.

Recently an opportunity arose to move the list to a more modern platform, through the combined generosity of Doctors Tom Rice in Milwaukee and Randall Wetzel in Los Angeles. Tom Rice, through the Bauman Family Chair in Critical Care Fund, and Randall Wetzel, through the L.K. Whittier Foundation, have provided resources to allow the list to be moved to a server in the care of the VPICU IT staff in Los Angeles. The new platform allows for subscribers to participate via email, or directly via a Web site, including Web-based subscription controls and search tools.

The move includes a name change - the new list is PICUList@vpicu.org, and it can be accessed through the VPICU Web site (http://www.vpicu.org) or the PedsCCM Web site (http://www.pedsccm.org) or directly (once you have subscribed) through http://www.piculist.org.

The planned change will take place over a period of 2 weeks. Starting May 9, 2005, users of the current MCW-based PICU list can subscribe to the new PICUList (instructions below). DO NOT UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THE OLD LIST - there will be no automatic cross posting from the old list to the new, so you will want to remain subscribed to both lists during the transition fortnight. Two weeks from today, the old PICU list will be shut down, and the subscriber list erased.

To join the new forum and email list, click on http://www.vpicu.org/piculist_signup.php.

On this page, you will enter the email address you wish to use for the new list, and indicate if you want to receive daily digests or not (you can easily do this later as well), and then click on a Submit button.

You will shortly thereafter receive a subscription confirmation email, which you will use to activate your new email list subscription.

Then you will receive a welcome message.

1. change your password to something you can remember,
2. set up your profile so that messages you post on the WWW site identify you clearly, and
3. sign up for the old PICU list digest archives (that will allow you to search the new and old archives together).