Medical science is advancing so fast that the amount of medical knowledge doubles every few years. Doctors must scramble to keep up with new ways of diagnosing, treating, and preventing disease. When the doctor knows about new discoveries, patients usually benefit by getting the most effective care.

Is your own doctor, dentist, or other health care professional staying current? Is he or she riding the crest of medical knowledge's new wave? Is the doctor really with it? Or is he foundering somewhere in a health care backwater?

Those continuing education and recertification certificates plaques hanging in the office walls are one good yardstick. They show that the doctor completed refresher courses, advanced training seminars, and continued learning in other ways.

More and more patients, however, look for another clue. It's not a certificate on the wall. It's a personal computer on the desk.

They look for more than a PC, which can be just an ornament. The doctor should have skills to use the computer, the interest to do so, and the commitment to merge it fully into a 21st-century approach to caring for patients. Plenty of computer-literate patients know the meaning of www.nlm.nih.gov. The doctor should, too.

What can a computer-literate doctor offer patients? Consider a few examples.

Before treating a serious disease, she can find every research report on that disease published in every major medical publication in the world. One of those reports may describe a new treatment, a once-unknown side effect of treatment, or maybe even reasons why no treatment is needed.

It takes minutes on the Internet these days. Simply connect to the National Library of Medicine's vast online Medline database of 4,300 medical journals and search for a disease name. That's where the www.nlm.nih.gov applies. It's the library's Internet address.

Millions of patients use Medline and other Internet health resources to get information about health problems. While many patients have become computer literate, many doctors - especially those outside academic settings - have clung to the old ways.

They use medieval technology - ink on paper - to enter patient records, rather than a computer keyboard.

Who is more current with medical knowledge? The online doctor with the skills to search Medline and tap other Internet resources? Or the old-line doctor who attended a continuing education course last year?

Computer-literate doctors can get online subscriptions to medical and science journals, rather than waiting for the paper copies to arrive by S-Mail. That's snail mail, the U.S. Postal Service variety. Online editions also make it easier to search through years of back issues for information about a disease.

Patients also benefit when their medical records are kept on a computer hard disk, rather than paper.

Suppose researchers discover that a drug has serious side effects, and recommend that patients stop taking it. With computerized medical records, the doctor's office can instantly search hundreds of patients' records, and find names of those on the dangerous medicine. They can be notified, and their medication changed to a safer drug.

Online doctors and dentists also give their patients access to the convenience and speed of e-mail. Patients can use e-mail to ask questions, make appointments, get prescription refills.

More than anything else, however, that PC on the doctor's desk signals this individual is willing to learn and invest time and money in embracing technology that benefits patients.

Michael Woods is the Blade's science editor.

First Published July 3, 2000, 4:00 a.m.