The Arizona Telemedicine Program Blog

After four challenging years as a medical student – while maintaining her roles as a wife and mother of five daughters – Mary Alyson Smith will graduate from the University of Arizona College of Medicine-Tucson, in May. She has decided to pursue a career in pathology, and is especially interested in telepathology, “I feel it’s an area that still has great potential for growth,” she says.

But there’s more to Mary’s medical training. In addition to the usual four years of study, Mary applied and was one of 26 students accepted to the UA College of Medicine’s Rural Health Professions Program (RHPP), designed to broaden students’ knowledge of healthcare delivery by matching them with physician preceptors working in small towns, including Indian Health Service sites, throughout Arizona.

Is telemedicine “as good” as a face-to-face patient visit?  Take a few cues from television and movie professionals to make sure!

In today's digital world, we've all become visual image connoisseurs.  Part of what we respond to is technical and part is artistic. It's largely the “artistic” portion in which meaning and emotion are created. 

As such, telemedicine professionals would be wise to pay attention to certain artistic aspects, when creating the telemedicine patient/provider encounter.

Beyond the 'good enough' technical aspects of the telemedicine encounter – available bandwidth, relatively clear and fluid video, and audio of an acceptable level – there is a higher-quality bar that we, as telemedicine professionals, must strive to reach, in order to be trusted and to overcome  objections that our viewers might have.  Often, these objections may even be subconscious on the viewer's part, but still come into play, and nothing is harder to resolve than an unconscious objection!

Ruby and I have got it down pat. A bark at the back door tells me one of two things: "I want to go outside" or "I'm ready to come back in."

But a few months ago, when Ruby – my 65-pound standard poodle -- signaled her wish to come in, the next thing I noticed was how she was holding up her left front foot, while giving me her "Do something!" look.

Standing or walking on that foot was obviously painful, but I found no wound or bite to tell me what was wrong.