sider the possibilities for this new doctor - patient relationship endless, but the American Medical Association is concerned that some patients may only visit Web sites and skip the office visit when they have health problems.(Johnson, 14)Doctors at one Web site, AmericasDoctor.com, say they are actually against practicing medicine on the Internet. They say they see themselves more as traffic cops helping consumers navigate through the vast amount of medical information that is on the Web. The site, which is affiliated with seven health-care organizations and hospitals, doesn't prescribe medication or keep medical records and gets about 400 million pages view a day. (AmericasDoctor.com) E-mail between physicians and patients offers important opportunities for better communication. Linking patients and physicians through e-mail may increase the involvement of patients in supervising and documenting their own health care, processes that may activate patients and contribute to improved health. These new linkages may have profound implications for the patient-physician relationship. Although the federal government proposes regulation of telemedicine technologies and medical software, communications technologies are evolving under less scrutiny. ( Mandl,495) Unless these technologies are implemented with substantial consideration, they may disturb delicate balances in the physician patient relationship, widen social disparity in health outcomes, and create barriers to access to health care. Internet technologies have become useful tools for medical practice. Online, physicians can search the medical literature and find both synoptic and full-text medical journal content. Patients have access to medical information, self-help and support groups, and even medical experts. The World Wide Web can be used to link patient data across multiple institutions for retrieval by providers at the point of service or by researchers....
