ABC | Volume 113, Nº1, July 2019

Viewpoint Luz Telemedicine and the doctor/patient relationship Arq Bras Cardiol. 2019; 113(1):100-102 1. Flodgren G, Rachas A, Farmer AJ,Inzitari M, Shepperd S. et al. Interactive telemedicine: effects on professional practice and health care outcomes. Cochrane Database of Systematic. 2015; 2015;9:CD002098. 2. Ekeland AG, Bowes A , Flottorp S . Effectiveness of telemedicine: a systematic review of reviews. Int J Med Inform. 2010;79(11):736-71. 3. Bertoncello C, Colucci M, Baldovin T, Buja A, Baldo V. How does it work? Factors involved in telemedicine home-interventions effectiveness: a review of reviews. PloS One. 2018 Nov 15; 13(11):e0207-332 4. Luz PL. Nem só de ciência se faz a cura. São Paulo: Atheneu; 2001. 5. Pease A, Pease B. Desvendando os segredos da linguagem corporal. Rio de Janeiro: Sextante; 2005. 6. Dimitrius Jo-E, MazzarellaW P. Decifrar pessoas: como entender e prever o comportamento humano. São Paulo: Alegro; 2000 7. Groopman JE. Como os médicos pensam. Rio de Janeiro: Sinergia - Agir; 2009 References We should use the best of the two worlds: preserving humanism in medicine and using new technologies to improve medical care. This is possible; it only depends on some adjustments that are evidently possible. However, further studies are still needed to answer important questions such as those mentioned above. These questions include patient acceptance, the effectiveness of telemedicine in specific clinical conditions and the impact on the health system as a whole. One possibility that cannot be ruled out is that telemedicine and the telecommunication media may become so efficient in the future, to the point that doctor/patient relationships are drastically changed, and what is causing concern today is outweighed by other much more significant advantages. This has happened to iPhones and the social media: no one writes letters anymore. And no one misses them. However, while cost reduction in the health system is an important element, on the other, cost reduction alone cannot be the only standard of analysis for a new technology such as telemedicine. It is always important to be aware of the benefits for the patients. Author contributions Conception and design of the research and Writing of the manuscript: Luz PL. Potential Conflict of Interest No potential conflict of interest relevant to this article was reported. Sources of Funding This study was funded by Bradesco S.A. Study Association This study is not associatedwith any thesis or dissertationwork. Ethics approval and consent to participate This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 102