Abstract
This paper focuses on the importance of digital communication between medical teams and patients and their families when mediated by technological tools. Medicine is changing following the fourth industrial (the digital) revolution: from CAT scans, to X-rays, to UV radiation, to electronic records, to treatment tracking apps, to telemedicine, and the use of AI in doctors' decision-making processes. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted both the fruitful and problematic sides of this medical evolution. Digital tools such as tablets, smartphones, and video calling apps proved to be essential. Accordingly, I analyze three cases that reveal the helpfulness and the limitations of new communication technologies: on physicians and non-hospitalized patients, on families and patients, and on healthcare professionals and patients' families. Since the medical relationship is not only clinical but also relational and human, one must pay attention to the communicative dimensions of it to remain at least partly human-e.
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Notes
Italy faced the so-called 'first wave' from February 2020 until approximately the end of May 2020.
My translation from the original Italian version: “Il medico, facendo uso dei sistemi telematici, non può sostituire la visita medica che si sostanzia nella relazione diretta con il paziente, con una relazione esclusivamente virtuale; può invece utilizzare gli strumenti di telemedicina per le attività di rilevazione o monitoraggio a distanza, dei parametri biologici e di sorveglianza clinica.” [13].
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Consolandi, M. Toward a digitalized medicine: the Covid-19 pandemic as a disclosure of the importance of digital communication in the clinical world. Theor Med Bioeth (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11017-024-09667-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11017-024-09667-1