The Internet's role in patient/physician interaction: bringing our understanding in line with online reality

The Internet has changed the way medical practitioners communicate and educate themselves and their patients. The Internet has provided enormous opportunity, but it has also led to complexity and uncertainty. We hope patients are intelligent partners in the management of their health, and we invite them to engage in the process of this management. Managed care has forced us to limit the length, depth, and frequency of patient encounters. Hopefully, patients will become more literate concerning their own conditions and their own bodies. They may lack medical knowledge and language. As a result, they may be drawn to online resources. Physicians often get angry or irritated when patients seek and retrieve information on their own. Our attempts to mediate patients' online activities can stress the patient/physician relationship. This could lead to misunderstandings, miscommunications, and fray an already fragile trust. There are many issues that accompany this cultural shift. We need to acknowledge the problem in order to achieve a resolution that is mutually satisfactory.