TY - JOUR T1 - Black, white or green: ‘race’, gender and avatars within the therapeutic space JF - Medical Humanities JO - J Med Humanit SP - 9 LP - 12 DO - 10.1136/jmh.2010.005637 VL - 37 IS - 1 AU - Mark A Graber AU - Abraham D Graber Y1 - 2011/06/01 UR - http://mh.bmj.com/content/37/1/9.abstract N2 - Personal identity is critical to provider–patient interactions. Patients and doctors tend to self-select, ideally forming therapeutic units that maximise the patients' benefit. Recently, however, ‘reality’ has changed. The internet and virtual worlds such as Second Life (http://www.secondlife.com/) allow models of identity and provider–patient interactions that go beyond the limits of mainstream personal identity. In this paper some of the ethical implications of virtual patient–provider interactions, especially those that have to do with personal identity, are explored. ER -