“The Doctor is In (Well, Logged In)” is an article I found on the NY Times. I found this article to be both extremely interesting and at the same time kind of unsettling. Here’s a little background: Dr. Jay Parkinson is a 37 year old doctor who graduated from Penn State College of Medicine and did his residency at both St. Vincent’s Manhatten Hospital and Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. After finishing his residency, he decided he really didn’t want to go into a private practice and work long hours for little pay. His next move was pretty bold and somewhat outside of the character of what we envision doctors to be and do.
Dr. Jay Parkinson became the founder of Sherpaa, an online website that operates as a virtual doctor’s office, examining patients via email and text messaging. He says, “We’re using the Internet to reinvent health care.” I agree with him on this, he is certainly changing the way we think about health care. And while this sounds incredibly cool and makes visiting a doctor more accessible to patients, I take a different view.
Absolutely, Dr. Parkinson is brilliant and deserves his accolades but in the long run, this method of health care could never really work. First of all, Dr. Parkinson is about making money, not helping people. For one he let his licence to practice medicine lapse. Secondly, his clients are not everyday working people, they are “Web luminaries like David Karp, founder of Tumblr, Chris Hughes a founder of Facebook,” and other company giants. These giants are very interested in Dr. Parkinson’s new health care model which will seek to cut employee health care costs by $4,000 a year per employee. Not to mention celebs like Tyra Banks want him on their shows. I respect Dr. Parkinson for doing something as brilliant as he did, my only hope is that we don’t disguise new ways of making money as groundbreaking health care.
What do you think about this? And what implications does it have for technology and healthcare?
You can find this article at http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/21/fashion/jay-parkinson-the-doctor-is-in-well-logged-in.html?ref=technology&_r=0
I don’t think this should be considered legal of practicing medicine. There are so many quacks out there perscribing un needed medicines and are letting a lot of controlled substances go out to the streets. I believe if you are sick you have to take real tests and be checked by a health professional either in office or as a house call. One can’t determine another’s well being without physically examining the being. This idea is very unsettling to me and I think if sites like this are going to start-up, that three should be laws and regulations made to make sure everyone is doing the right thing.
First things first, I wonder why he is using that name for the company? Sherpaa? I cannot make anything of it.
But getting back to the article, I am quite iffy about this topic. I like the idea that if I experience a small medical emergency, I can quickly just ask my online doctor, instead of running to the hospital and getting examined by a doctor for something that is most probably nothing. I would save a lot of money, especially me being an international student and having no medical insurance.
However, there is the issue of the doctor not actually being able to see you in person and with this, anyone could pretend and play sick and ask for certain medications. This is very dangerous. Also looking at the company’s website, majority of the doctors look very young (age is experience), and this makes me question what you pointed out, if this is done just so as to make money. Young doctors do not need to be paid much, and this makes me wonder if they genuinely care about their patients or not.