Untangling the Web — Patients, Doctors, and the Internet

Medicine has built on a long history of innovation, from the stethoscope and roentgenogram to magnetic resonance imaging and robotics. Doctors have embraced each new technology to advance patient care. But nothing has changed clinical practice more fundamentally than one recent innovation: the Internet. Its profound effects derive from the fact that while previous technologies have been fully under doctors' control, the Internet is equally in the hands of patients. Such access is redefining the roles of physician and patient.Information traditionally flowed from doctor to patient; the physician described the genesis and course of a disease and the options . . .