How to deal with the digitally empowered patient

How to deal with the digitally empowered patient

From the site:

ORTHOPEDICS TODAY 2008; 28:30
April 2008

In November I wrote an article for the Time magazine Web site about an encounter with a demanding and computer-search savvy patient named Susan that touched off a small firestorm in the blogosphere. At least 20 well-read blog sites ran pieces about it with vigorous reader-response on both sides, either pro-patient or pro-doctor. The New York Times blog site alone has more than 300 write-ins, many emotional. At the end of January, CNN still had an article concerning this on the front page of its Web site.

For this Orthopedics Today Round Table discussion, I have gathered together a panel of orthopedic surgeons to discuss how patient empowerment by the Internet as well as other factors such as new commercialization efforts, regulation and the liability threat in medicine is changing their current practice and what they see as their future.

Scott V. Haig, MD
Moderator