The cyber doctor will see you now
By Michelle Hogan

When Bob Staib of Lexington, Ky. was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1995, he read an article about the Internet, bought a computer and began to use the Web to educate himself about his disease. Since then, he has discussed the therapies he finds online with his doctor, and together they make treatment decisions. Doctors told Staib he would have five years to live after his diagnosis, but he has been fighting cancer for almost 10 years now. “The Internet has been my salvation,” he said. “I’d probably be dead if it weren’t for that.”

Others have not had the same success. A patient of Dr. Ronald B. Kuppersmith, coordinator of Internet and information technology for the American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, trusted inaccurate information he read online and suffered traumatic consequences. The patient had cancer and refused various treatments after doing research online. “He went from having something treatable to something untreatable even with heroic measures,” Dr. Kuppersmith said. “We tried for one year and could not save him.”

These two examples illustrate the double-edged quality of Web medicine today. While information on the Internet can help patients manage their own care, it can also lead to dangerous decisions. The explosion of health information on the Internet has made regulation difficult, allowing Web sites with incomplete and inaccurate information to persist. Doctors are trying to guide patients through the confusion by discussing the information with them and posting doctor-approved material on professional Web sites. These actions are transforming the traditional face of medicine. They are making doctor and patient partners in health care and gradually pushing medicine into the age of electronic technology.

The number of health sites on the Web has been on the rise since Internet use ballooned in the mid-1990s. Dr.Koop.com, in 1997, and WebMD, in 1998, led the way in bringing consumer health information online. The presence of health information has exploded since then, growing from 10,000 sites in 1997 to an estimated 50,000 to 100,000 sites in 2003, according to Dr. Tom Ferguson, senior research fellow for online health for the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

More and more patients are surfing the Web for health information. Studies rank searching for...