With the onset of technology, new ways of keeping in tough and communicating has been gripping the lives of many people. Earlier, it was seen that doctors used to shun the technology that might threaten patients' privacy and their own pocketbooks. But a recent study indicates that the new breed of physician that is emerging is technology friendly. Moreover, they prefer texting health messages to patients, tracking disease trends on Twitter, and communicating with patients through email.

There was a survey conducted last summer of 501 randomly selected doctors. The survey concluded that more than 20% of the doctors engaged in emails with patients over secure networks. What is more profound is the fact that 6% of these doctors communicated with patients through social media. This has highlighted the dependence of new breed of doctors on technology.

Although these numbers are pretty small and most of the doctors still prefer pen and paper and just use technology to communicate with each other and not with patients, it is being estimated that the trend is gradually changing. Pediatrician Natasha Burgert is one such technology savvy doctor that offers child-rearing tips on her blog, Facebook and Twitter pages, and answers patients' questions by email and text messages.