If you're kitted out with a brace of speakers, a 28.8 modem, a good sound card, a vidcam and the right sort of computer grunt there could, finally, be a doctor in the house. Or at least a plastic surgeon. Dr Edward Jonas Domanskis, worthy citizen of Newport Beach, California, founding member of the Lithuanian Society of Plastic Surgeons and Chevalier of the Confraternity of the Knights of the Most Holy Trinity, Germany, has opened shop in cyberspace.

He has 10,000 patients on his books, with problems ranging from Bill Gates ears to Winnie Mandela breasts. Languages spoken include French, German, English, Japanese, Spanish and Portuguese.

The cyberplastic clinic (http://www.plasticsurgery-video.com/)is aimed at people who don't want to travel for an opinion, or don't know a good skin man in the neighbourhood, or want to keep their consultations secret. Compared to conventional travel costs, it works out dirt cheap: $100 for the first consultation and $3 per minute thereafter. Per minute? Sure, it's live, through the nice videoconferencing software from White Pine (http://www.cu-seeme.com), famed for the defining role it plays in the cybersex industry. You talk, and the good doctor talks back, with your monitor doubling as a TV screen.

If you like what you see, you can go meet him in person. He will arrange a complimentary limo from LA International, book you in the Marriott and offer "recovery facilities that are nearby and private". It should have the political class doing backflips. Sukh Ram could get less fishier eyes. Sitaram Kesri could get a better everything.

Dr Domanskis is an aberration in private medical practice online -- all the other wired consultants are clinical psychologists. It's relatively difficult for more traditional disciplines. You can't palpate a cirrhosing liver online, can you, or gauge the colour of a skin rash?

But psychology is all about chatting, so there's a rash of non-prescribing shrinks on the wires. The Doctor is In, for instance, maintains a stable of at least six clinical psychologists on call at http://www.americasguide.com. They're all specialists and you get to take your pick. Dr Deborah Steese ($30 the question), for instance, creates supportive environments for dementia, Dr Lee Solow ($25) helps out with `negativities' and Dr Cathy Chance ($28) is hot on domestic violence. Payment strictly through cybercash.Doctors have been loose on the Net since its early days, but until two years ago, they were trapped in professional databases that just listed names, addresses and phone numbers, in areas ranging from dentistry to naturopathy. Then came info-sheets, which helped patients understand what their offline doctors were up to without starting up a Web-mediated doctor-patient relationship. Dr Rosario Gurino's neurology page (http://www.eastnc2.coastalnet.com/ cn3877/index.htm), with updates on everything from multiple sclerosis to carpal tunnel disorder, is a good contemporary example. Besides, the IRC channel #doctors, which has been active on EFnet for a long time, has many professionals offering free advice -- with the caveat that only your local doctor can give a real diagnosis.

So what next? The future seems to belong to people like Dr David Brown, who offers psychotherapy from Cape Coral, Florida at http://www.askdoctordave.com. He's trying to blur the not very obvious borders between counselling and broadcast evangelism. You e-mail him your questions. He mails you back, with an e-bill for $20 attached. He's also put up feelgood articles, including one that is credited with preventing a suicide. If you like them, he encourages you to part with a dollar or two for the upkeep of the Website. His motto: `No one should lead a life of despair'. Obviously, he is yet to meet an MTNL lineman.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.