[shield] THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
Student Counseling
AND RESOURCE SERVICE

E-mail: Cogitate Before You Click

Robert Hsiung, MD
dr-bob@uchicago.edu
(xxx) xxx-xxxx
1/6/00

Contents

 

Risks, Benefits, and Alternatives

Before you use e-mail to communicate with a therapist, you should understand the potential benefits, the potential risks, and the alternatives.

The benefits of e-mail include being able to send and receive e-mail at any time of day or night; never having to leave messages with intermediaries; avoiding not only intermediaries, but also voice mail and telephone tag; being able to take as long as you want to compose messages; and automatically having a record of communications to refer to later.

The risks of e-mail are that it could fail to be received and that confidentiality could be breached. An e-mail could fail to be received if it is sent to the wrong e-mail address or if it just is not noticed by the recipient. Confidentiality could be breached in transit by hackers or Internet service providers or at either end by others who had access to either the account or the computer.

The alternatives to e-mail are, of course, writing a letter or a note, making a phone call, and meeting in person.

 

Uses

Certain issues lend themselves more easily to e-mail; others may be more appropriately dealt with on the phone or in person. Dr. Hsiung suggests the following:

Possibly appropriate for e-mail Probably inappropriate for e-mail
  • scheduling appointments
  • giving "status reports"
  • reporting mild-moderate medication side-effects
  • reporting moderate-severe medication side-effects
  • discussing issues
  • dealing with urgent or severe problems (especially suicidality)

Please discuss this with him if you have any questions.

 

Turnaround time

How soon an e-mail you send will be read may be an issue. Different therapists check their e-mail with different frequencies. Dr. Hsiung usually is at the SCRS:

Tuesday-Friday 8:30 am-5 pm

and usually checks his e-mail:

Days at the SCRS Once or twice a day
Other days Once or not at all
At night Usually doesn't
When out of town Unpredictable

If you don't get a timely response to an e-mail, please call:

Dr. Hsiung (xxx) xxx-xxxx
The SCRS during the day (xxx) xxx-xxxx
after hours (xxx) xxx-xxxx
 

Confidentiality

Confidentiality is an important aspect of mental health services. These are measures Dr. Hsiung takes to safeguard the security of e-mail:

Safeguard Yes No
Keeps his dr-bob@uchicago.edu password to himself (ie, doesn't share that account or e-mail address) x
Prints out and deletes confidential e-mail x
Saves confidential e-mail on his computer in encrypted form
x
Requires a password to use his computer x
Requires a password to unlock his screen saver x
Is able to encrypt and decrypt e-mail using Pretty Good Privacy, http://www.pgp.com x
Date: July 15, 2006

University of Chicago Student Counseling and Resource Service
5737 S. University Ave., Chicago, Illinois 60637-1507
(xxx) xxx-xxxx