Any patient who has a serious illness requiring multiple doctors understands the frustration of lost medical charts, repeated procedures, or having to share the same information over and over with different doctors and nurses.

The Internet ethos of diversity and competition runs exactly counter to uniform, gatekeeper-oriented medical culture - the technocratic philosophy of the 'one best way' embodied in our pharmaceutical regulations. On the Net, medical information is abundant, and pharmacies, domestic and foreign, operate on many different models.

We need to and must protect privacy. But I think that people will be willing and even eager to share medical information about themselves for the greater good of mankind.

Here at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, we have genetically rearranged various viruses and bacteria as part of our medical research. In fact, we have been able to create entirely new types of DNA molecules by splicing together the genetic information from different organisms - recombinant DNA.

School districts around the country, and the taxpayers that support them, have a moral right to the information the NFL might have concerning the medical aspects of the game, and to assess the risks to the students in their charge. Colleges have a moral right to that information for the same reasons.

Do any of us actually want to live in a world where your boss can decide that he or she is morally opposed to mental health care? What if your employer was morally opposed to getting x-rays or antibiotics? How about just being forced to disclose your private medical information to your employer?

Information on how to heal autism and how to possibly delay vaccines or prevent autism shouldn't come from me. It should come from the medical establishment.

We need to bridge the gap between the medical libraries and the hospital rooms; take the information out there already, add to it, focus it, harness it - and bring it to the patient who was just diagnosed today.

I have many times thought I did the wrong thing, but the reason was not to be a medical doctor - it was just to have the information. But then, maybe I was wrong, I don't know.

In 1963 and later papers, I pointed out that the special market characteristics of medical care and medical insurance could be explained by reference to differences in information among the parties involved.

I don't practice, but I am still officially in paediatrics. I keep in touch with journals, and I have a very good data bank of medical information and there is a key thing for a writer knowing where to go. I know where to go to get the information that I need.

I would like the Medical Society to be one of the resources for information about the influences that have an impact on our patients and our practices.

There's a lot of arrogance in the medical community. There are good, reliable websites you can go to for information - the Mayo Clinic, the Cleveland Clinic, Johns Hopkins.

What we need in medical schools is not to teach empathy, as much as to preserve it - the process of learning huge volumes of information about disease, of learning a specialized language, can ironically make one lose sight of the patient one came to serve; empathy can be replaced by cynicism.

Your genome sequence will become a vital part of your medical record, thereby providing critical information about how to optimize your wellness.

No doubt, clinical practice in alleviating malaria symptoms utilizing Qinghao - inherited from traditional Chinese medical literature - provided some useful information leading to the discovery of artemisinin.

Even though people pretend that medical records are privileged information, anyone can already get their hands on them.

In strictly medical terms, there's no difference between HIV and diabetes; they're not curable, but they're very, very highly treatable, and early information is power. The only thing - literally the only thing - that is different is the stigma. And we have to overcome it, because it is now the only reason people are dying.

These technologies can make life easier, can let us touch people we might not otherwise. You may have a child with a birth defect and be able to get in touch with other parents and support groups, get medical information, the latest experimental drugs. These things can profoundly influence life. I'm not downplaying that.

There have been some medical schools in which somewhere along the assembly line, a faculty member has informed the students, not so much by what he said but by what he did, that there is an intimate relation between curing and caring.

Informed consent is required for every invasive medical procedure, from getting your ears pierced to having an abortion.

Electronic medical records are, in a lot of ways, I think the aspect of technology that is going to revolutionize the way we deliver care. And it's not just that we will be able to collect information, it's that everyone involved in the healthcare enterprise will be able to use that information more effectively.

Developments in medical technology have long been confined to procedural or pharmaceutical advances, while neglecting a most basic and essential component of medicine: patient information management.

Privacy with medical information is a fallacy. If everyone's information is out there, it's part of the collective.