Anybody want to guess what will happen now that a U.S. clinical practice is offering telephone-based medical services? A big swell increase in actual prescriptions for certain drugs that would previously have been purchased on sketchy international websites, that’s for sure. And while some ethicists are skeptical of telephone-based practice in general:

Practicing medicine without seeing the patient is still a dangerous thing, said Arthur Caplan, chairman of the department of medical ethics at the University of Pennsylvania. From the doctors point of view, its not standard of care.

it is clear that the problem isn’t telemedicine in principle – some folks already conduct much of their medical care by phone; I certainly “see” our pediatrician more often by phone than in person. The problem is telemedicine of the kind TelaDoc is offering – medicine provided by people who are willing to treat someone whom they do not know at all and about whom they will have little insight absent physical examination. How these people will avoid being driven out of business by malpractice is beyond me. And the fees for this form of medicine will attract those who can’t pay for real medical care.

So in a nutshell this is a nightmare in the making. Unless you have erectile dysfunction and your other option was a website from Muldavia.

[thanks Carlos Arruda]