He’s Helped Put Doctoring on the Internet
The modem sings the distinctive tone that a connection has been made as Dr. Avrum Bluming stares into the screen of his Macintosh computer.
But then, nothing.
Somewhere, a step has been missed. The L.A. Free-Net is up and working, but at the moment its founder can’t connect from his Encino office.
“I’m not a computer techie,” Bluming said, “I’m a doctor.”
Bluming, 57, is also the founder of the HOPE . Unit Foundation, an organization that supports cancer patients. A cancer researcher and oncologist who until 1993 served as chief of staff at what is now Encino/Tarzana Regional Medical Center, Bluming prefers that patients learn as much as they can about fighting disease.
“The idea of a doctor as parent is an old-fashioned idea,” he said. “I prefer to think of the doctor as an advisor.”
In 1986, Bluming was intrigued by a story about a computer message site in Cleveland where ordinary people started posting medical questions to doctors who quickly and anonymously answered them. The Cleveland Free-Net, the nation’s first such free computer-access program, quickly grew beyond medicine into other subjects.
The medical potential for a Free-Net impressed Bluming. So, as he puts it, for the next eight years whenever he or one of his fellow volunteers saw an acquaintance on the street, they asked them for donations.
With their help and a federal grant, the all-volunteer L.A. Free-Net was launched May 10, 1994. Based at Encino/Tarzana medical center, the site has local access numbers in all Los Angeles area codes, more than 250 phone lines, and handles 7,500 hits a day from students, seniors, the poor and professionals.
In addition to access to vast resources of medical information, including a connection to a physicians’ nationwide database, the L.A. Free-Net also connects users to libraries, colleges, community groups, charities, the city of Los Angeles and Caltrans. It is used by Emergency Network Los Angeles, a group of nonprofit groups that respond to disasters.
The Free-Net is not free, but the $15 annual fee, a fraction of what commercial Internet service providers charge, is sometimes waived for those who cannot afford it. The fee keeps the system from being flooded by users, Bluming said. “We didn’t want to drown in success,” he said.
“We see a large number of senior citizens,” said Mel Roseman of Encino, a retired Birmingham High School English teacher and L.A. Free-Net volunteer. Roseman, the Internet service coordinator and a general trouble-shooter, knows of many Free-Net users with outdated equipment.
“One user is still proudly using a Commodore 64, just to show that it can be done,” Roseman said. “All you need is a computer with a serial output and a modem.”
Schools can also get free Internet access through the Free-Net. Nonprofits can set up Web pages there and the Free-Net is working on a connection to a retirement home in Tarzana.
The Free-Net is not as impersonal as most of the Internet. “We don’t allow handles,” Bluming said, referring to the use of computer pseudonyms. Whenever e-mail or other postings are made through the L.A. Free-Net, “It’s your name that goes on it,” he said.
The Free-Net is about sharing ideas of building a community rather than Web surfing, game playing and chat. “We want to put a face on it,” Bluming said.
Free-Net Web page address is https://www.lafn.org/
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