 census statistics of the small rural hospital are adversely affected. In addition, transportation of fragile patients presents health risks, and discontinuity of care can result. Rural doctors often suffer from professional isolation, and find continuation of their medical education difficult. A highly specialized form of videoconferencing, Telemedicine, allows rural physicians to access, almost instantaneously, the specialized medical expertise of university doctors. It decreases the recurrence of referrals, provides immediate attention to life- threatening problems, establishes an integrated care network, and provides enhanced quality of care in rural situations. Even so, the patient's cost is significantly reduced. Video Communications: The Whole Picture Videoconferencing enables the MCG to improve care and delivery of medical services, and to reduce travel time and expense. It enhances patient referrals, consultations, and post-operative examinations. MCG's vision included emergency-room-to- emergency-room support, emergency psychiatric consultation, supervision at community hospitals, benefits consultations, recruitment, administrative meetings, and clinical research collaborations. Specialties such as cardiology, dermatology, neurology, and ophthalmology all employ telemedicine. Through videoconferencing interns, residents, fellows and students exchange published papers, discuss patient cases, and analyze prognoses throughout patients' illnesses. In this way, videoconferencing improves the quality of patient care by fostering new relationships. Moreover, by using the system to provide staff with information on such diverse subjects as women's health issues and financial planning, the institution believes videoconferencing has improved morale and saved more than $10,000 for every twelve hours that it is used. In addition, referring physicians earn credit for participating in tutorials with consulting physicians who are also members of the institution's faculty. The system records consultations on videotape 