"Death by telemedicine"

In August 2005, John McKay, a 19-year-old Stanford student and former high school debate champion, committed suicide by rolling up the windows in a car at his mother's Menlo Park home and piping in exhaust fumes.

In the next few weeks, a Colorado doctor who had prescribed a generic form of Prozac for McKay after receiving his request over the Internet, without ever seeing or examining him, will go on trial in Redwood City on possibly precedent-setting charges of practicing medicine in California without a license.

I started taking Lexapro in mid-August. By November, my depression worsened and I'd suffered several suicidal episodes.

I stopped the Lexapro and switched both doctors and drugs, to far better effect. I continue to monitor myself and my reactions, and should anything arise, my doctor is four miles away in Oakland.

I can't imagine prescribing an SSRI -- or any drug -- long-distance. I have no doubt McKay had troubles before Prozac, but I can absolutely see how the drug backfired and seemed to magnify things.