E-Mail Your Doctor

Playing telephone tag with your doctor is one of the most common--and frustrating--rituals of modern medicine. You phone...can't get past the receptionist...leave a message. Your doctor calls back while you're in a meeting...leaves a message. The amount of time wasted on both sides turns everybody sour. But a growing number of physicians are prescribing a dose of e-mail as the antidote.

There are still a few bugs to work out, of course, which is why e-mail has not replaced the pager in most doctors' offices. But enough physicians have added regular stints at the PC to their office routine that at...