Massive stars in our Galaxy are born predominantly within the dense cores of giant molecular clouds. They affect their environment very soon after a stellar core has formed through their large rate of ionizing photons and their strong stellar winds. Massive stars are formed in clusters with stellar densities n* ~ 104 stars/pc3 and sizes 0.2 — 0.4 pc, and seem to preferentially form near the central region of the cores. Disks have been found in several sources (see Cesaroni, this volume). Associated with massive stars also are bipolar molecular outflows, which have masses, mass loss rates, and energies that are factors of ~ 100 larger than those of low mass stars (see review of Churchwell 1999).

An understanding of the physical processes that dominate during the early stages of formation of massive stars and their influence back on the molecular gas from which they formed requires a detailed knowledge of the physical conditions of the environment prior to and after the formation of the star. Here we present an abstract of an extensive review on this subject by Garay & Lizano (1999). For compactness, most of the references have been omitted.