This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow Submit a response
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me when eLetters are posted
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Right arrow Citation Map
Services
Right arrow E-mail this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My File Cabinet
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via CrossRef
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by D'Alessandro, D. M.
Right arrow Articles by Colbert, S. I.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by D'Alessandro, D. M.
Right arrow Articles by Colbert, S. I.
Related Collections
Right arrow Office Practice
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Facebook   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati   Add to Twitter  
What's this?

PEDIATRICS Vol. 105 No. 6 June 2000, p. e74

ELECTRONIC ARTICLE:
A Proposed Solution for Addressing the Challenge of Patient Cries for Help Through an Analysis of Unsolicited Electronic Mail

Received Aug 23, 1999; accepted Jan 5, 2000.

Donna M. D'Alessandro*, Michael P. D'AlessandroDagger , and Stephana I. Colbert§

From the Departments of * Pediatrics and Dagger  Radiology, and the § Office of the Vice President for Research, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa.

Background.  Unsolicited electronic mail (e-mail) is e-mail sent to a physician from a person unknown to the physician, who is seeking professional help. The purpose of this project was to analyze unsolicited e-mails sent to a digital textbook author to: 1) characterize the e-mails, 2) determine what resources would be necessary to answer the e-mails, and 3) propose a standard approach to reply to e-mails in a helpful yet medicolegally-responsive manner.

Materials and Methods.  All e-mails (315) sent to a digital textbook author from October 1995 through October 1998 were abstracted. Variables included: date and location, sender type, patient age, subject, medical content, and resources necessary to answer the question. Data frequencies were obtained.

Results.  The most common location was the .com domain (47.6%). The most common senders were laypersons (66%). Overall, 44.4% of the e-mails concerned children. Detailed, patient-specific information was sent in 63.2% of the e-mails. The most common subjects were overviews of a disease or problem (32.4%), differential diagnosis (16.8%), and therapy/treatment questions (15.9%). The medical content covered a broad range of specialties. Specialists were overwhelmingly the resource necessary to answer the e-mails (74.9%).

Conclusions.  Pediatricians with educational information on the Internet can expect an increase in the number of unsolicited e-mails as Internet usage expands. Laypersons regard even short passages to mean the author is an expert in that particular area. Pediatricians need to consider the ethical and medicolegal implications of responding to unsolicited e-mails. A nonpersonalized, standard e-mail reply is proposed that directs the sender to quality information resources that may be of further assistance. unsolicited electronic mail, e-mail, medical informatics, legal issues, ethical issues, digital libraries. .


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Facebook Facebook   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati   Add to Twitter Twitter    What's this?