Figure 3.

Different media are appropriate at each point on the continuum between dispensing general health information and handling patients' problems which would require the practice of medicine to solve. For example, email is a sufficiently capable medium for giving out general health information, while diagnosis and treatment usually requires at least advanced telemedical technology. Likewise, when dispensing general health information, a Type A relationship between the patient and the physician is sufficient; for practicing medicine, a Type B relationship is desirable. The difficulty is that there is no clear-cut line between the two extremes - and it is in this grey area that the majority of patient-physician interactions on the Internet take place