Peter Frishauf

Peter Frishauf

            Peter Frishauf is the creator and owner of Medscape. He is also among the Medical Advertising Hall of Fame. In the 1960s he studied at New York University. MedScape set the standard with some of the first medical, peer-reviewed, and CME (Continuing Medical Education) content. Medscape is a leading online application for physicians and healthcare professionals worldwide. Medscape is also a website that provides access to medical information for medical professionals and students. The organization also provides continuous education for physicians and health professionals. The website and application are very accredited and trust-worthy, on a level such as the Mayo Clinic.

         In 1981, Frishauf started a paper-less electronic company called SCP Communications. His goal was to better the workflow processes for peer-reviewed scientific publishing. He believed it took entirely too long to publish information, even in things as simple as magazines, so he decided to try and replace human copiers with computers. Frishauf re-engineered the microcomputer to form a multi-user and multi-task system. “We created a system which pretty much-eliminated typewriters from the equation,” he says. “It was very much like Google Docs. Memory and disc space were precious at the time, so the technology forced us to share.”  As the internet began to grow, the price of sharing information fell, which in turn allowed the birth of Medscape to take place in a short three months in 1995. “When the internet came along, the cost of sharing information just dropped like a rock,” says Frishauf. “The key was: could you trust the information? We were uniquely qualified because we had a lot of experience creating trustworthy information as an electronic community.” Within Medscape’s first year, they would see over 40,000 registrants and 700 daily visitors.

          Frishauf has over 20 years of experience in the medical information field and holds a Masters in Journalism from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and a Bachelors from New York University’s Washington Square College. Peter Frishauf greatly relates to my chapter section of the book. Frishauf did not explore space or create cooperation between nations in space, but he did become a catalyst to the sharing of medical information in the beginning of a new technological age. From the 1960s to now, we live in an ever-growing world of technology. It shapes the simplest things like how we check the weather for the day to how surgeons conduct surgery. Peter Frishauf, furthermore, MedScape, has utilized tools like the internet and the access to share information almost instantaneously to change the medical field. With the creation of MedScape, Frishauf has really taken the subjects that my chapter focused on, such as the creation and popularization of the internet and the start of global communication, and used them to improve not only the medical field but the actual lives of the people inside of it. Since it gives access to reliable information, professionals and students have a trusted source to turn to.