AMA Journal of Ethics^®

For telemedicine to be properly integrated into everyday care in the twenty-first century, we need to advance beyond twentieth-century policy.

Although cross-state licensure is currently a barrier to the widespread adoption of telemedicine, policies that would expedite it or remove the requirement to be licensed where patients are located have been proposed by the Federation of State Medical Boards and the federal government.

This month, Virtual Mentor theme editor Vinod Nambudiri, MD, MBA, a resident in internal medicine and dermatology in the Harvard Combined Medicine-Dermatology Residency Training Program, interviewed Naomi Fried, PhD, about telemedicine's regulatory challenges and the opportunities it presents for innovation in health care delivery and medical education.

It is important for young medical professionals to understand the many systems of professional regulation and their role in defining and enforcing standards of professional conduct.

Telepsychiatry extends access to psychiatric treatment to those who might not otherwise get it, but licensure problems and the risk of boundary violations between patients and physicians need to be worked out.