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Rebecca Voelker

JAMA. 2003;290:1700-1701.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

Sometimes Catherine Niewoehner, MD, does her best writing in the wee hours of the morning. Her subject could be whether William Coolfeather's depression will improve in the face of economic upheavals at work and the fact that his volatile, elderly father has moved in with him. Or she could be plotting 80-year-old Elias Trappen's downward health spiral and how to help his family deal with his decline.

"I wake up at 3 AM and just jot things down," says Niewoehner, professor of medicine at the University of Minnesota Medical School, Minneapolis.

Source: University of Minnesota Medical School

Niewoehner is not trying to compose medical journal submissions or even the Great American Novel. The case reports that rouse her from sleep aren't even real patients. Coolfeather, Trappen, and a cast of others are virtual patients that are the cornerstone of the Minnesota Virtual Clinic, a Web-based educational tool . . . [Full Text of this Article]