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The following story asks the question, should you pick your doctor by the measure of their computer literacy or usage? On the parkinsn list, several doctors, researchers and their surrogates lurk in our midst. Please send a copy of your thoughts to the author: [log in to unmask] as well as the list. Picking a doctor? Look at his computer Copyright 1996 Nando.net (Jan 3, 1996 7:10 p.m. EST) -- Patients often look for ways to judge whether their personal physician, dentist or other health care provider keeps up to date with new scientific developments. Is this woman, this man, with it? Is she ready to apply new research findings in her practice? Is his inquisitive, questioning, nature attuned to 1996 technology? Everybody wants a physician whose scientific life is alive and vital and hasn't withered since medical school or residency. Doctors must keep learning and embrace new ways of staying in touch with the blistering pace of medical advancements. Evidence, however, suggests that physicians are slow to adopt new research findings and recommendations of expert panels. Patients sometimes don't benefit immediately from new medications, new diagnostic tests, new ways of preventing disease. Grading your doctor's scientific life and continuing education is difficult. Sure, many medical professionals must complete formal continuing education courses to keep practicing. But you want a physician who goes beyond the minimum formalities. Here is one possible indicator of whether your doctor is with-it, scientifically and technologically: Check out the doctor's desk for a personal computer terminal, a machine the doctor uses to tap medical information available on CD-ROMs, the Internet and electronic data banks. Wait a minute, readers! Don't turn the page. I'm not going to drown you in the technical jargon that turns-off so many computer novices. I know the jargon and niceties like the difference between CISC and RISC microprocessor architecture. Yet I hate it when people use computer jargon like aristocrats once salted their conversation with French to flaunt their supposed intellectual superiority. Many people who jabber about "surfing the net" purposefully make computers seem difficult to enhance their own importance. The jargon intimidates people, and discourages people from using machines that fundamentally simple. For medical people, the Internet and other new approaches to finding information are a new gateway to scientific knowledge. A friend at a university medical center may overstate the case for a computer on every doctor's desk. She argues that the physician who is not computer-literate today is like the frontier doctors of 200 years ago who were illiterate. Yes, like the doctors who thought it wasn't necessary to know how to read. Are computers any use to physicians in the everyday practice of medicine? Can a computer-literate doctor use data from the Internet, the global computer network, to provide better care for you and your family? To medical school physicians who practice in university medical centers -- and pride themselves on being at the forefront of medicine -- computers are a mainstay. They've long been a basic research and communication tool. But computers, and computer-literate physicians, are less common in office-based medicine where most Americans get day-to-day-care. A computer-literate physician can search all the articles published in more than 4,000 medical journals during the last decade for help diagnosing and treating a patient. He or she can do it in minutes, from any desktop computer, for a few cents. I'm holding a single CD-ROM -- a shiny plastic disc like those used for music. It contains the complete text of every article published for an entire year in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the Archives of Internal Medicine, the Archives of Family Medicine, the Archives of Surgery, the Archives of Neurology and several other medical journals. With a few keystrokes or clicks of a mouse you can search thousands of pages of text for the latest information about hundreds of diseases. It could be handy if a doctor wanted to check his recollection of an article describing the best treatment for your disease. The disc costs $9.95. Scores of other journals, textbooks, guides to drug dosages and effects, and other information are available on CD-ROMs. Is a computer-literate doctor a better doctor? Why don't more physicians know how to use electronic information resources? I'll watch my E-mail ([log in to unmask]) for comments.