Unfortunately, other on-line communities feature unsupervised sharing of health information. Some commercial entities, such as Prodigy and CompuServe, have bulletin boards monitored by members with no professional medical knowledge. The Internet has a seemingly infinite number of bulletin boards that allow people suffering from similar problems to share their frustrations and successes. The participants find the support of others invaluable, but the amount of misinformation on these bulletin boards is frightening. Some level of professional guidance is greatly needed in bulletin-board environments, or at least a source for verification.
Patients can do themselves significant harm by self-treating problems based on anecdotal accounts.
By going on-line, physicians can not only provide nonjudgmental guidance, but also increase the public's trust in the medical profession. As computers become standard household and office fixtures, the opportunities for on-line care will expand. Answering callbacks through E-mail, for example, is already a viable option. E-mail is conveniently read and answered on your own time schedule, is not thwarted by busy signals, and can be carefully composed to avoid misunderstandings. A record of the interaction may prevent further misunderstandings later.