High technology medicine: how defined and how regarded.

High technology--complex, expensive, restricted in availability, and requiring some form of explicit rationing--is bound to influence the medical task. Diagnosis, prognosis, decision, and management have all incorporated high technology, changing the hospital physician's role from one of private contractor to one of team member. Attitudes toward the balance between burden and benefit of high technology are as varied as are the conflicting vested interests among patients, professionals, society, industry, and government. Above all, it will take time for both patients and professionals to learn how to redefine expectations in a changing relationship.