Telemedicine is becoming increasingly popular across all fields of medicine but doctors aren’t necessarily taught how to use it effectively, a researcher and physician wrote in the Washington Post.
“As is often the case with technological change, our capacity to generate innovation has exceeded our capacity to understand its implications,” wrote Dhruv Khullar, MD, with Weill Cornell Medicine. “With telemedicine, we’ve done what we generally do: Introduce a new treatment, technology or care model, and assume doctors will figure out how to use it.”
Challenges with telemedicine include deciding which diagnoses can confidently be made virtually and building a rapport with patients—which may be more difficult without in-person interaction, where subtle cues can be more easily noticed and interpreted.
Rahul Sharma, MD, the emergency physician-in-chief for New York Presbyterian-Weill Cornell, said the creation of an entirely new specialty—the “medical virtualist”—may be necessary with the expansion of telemedicine. These doctors would almost exclusively treat patients remotely and received specialized training and certification.
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Daniel joined TriMed’s Chicago editorial team in 2017 as a Cardiovascular Business writer. He previously worked as a writer for daily newspapers in North Dakota and Indiana.