Why telemedicine diminishes the doctor-patient relationship

Abstract

Stokel-Walker says that telemedicine is here to stay.1 “Tele” is from the Greek, meaning “far off,” and a clinician is “a doctor having direct contact with patients.”2 Telemedicine is therefore oxymoronic, unless medicine now refers solely to the distribution of drugs and not to the clinical activity of examining patients. How does one detect hepatomegaly, feel for lymphadenopathy, percuss the chest, elicit rebound …

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