摘要Objectives: Social media has changed methods of communication in the medical profession.As part of a "doctor as communicator" strategy,Chinese medical professionals are actively embracing social media,which may have an impact on tense physician-patient relationships in China.This paper aims to examine a pattern of Internet access,Internet usage,and trust among Chinese medical professionals and further explores the reasons for these relationships on an individual level.Designs: A web-based questionnaire was designed,based on a media literacy model,and was divided into 3 dimensions: public information,general medical information,and specialty information.After a two-round pilot study,1001 physicians were included.Additionally,4 interviewees were chosen to participate in in-depth interviews and content analysis was performed.Data were analyzed using SPSS 25.0.Results: Findings showed that new media has become a major approach for medical professionals in China to retrieve and get access to various information.However,they still trust traditional media (n =1001,P ＜ 0.01) and professional journals more (n =1001,P ＜ 0.01).Internet access,usage,and trust were positively correlated (r-0.185-0.344,P ＜ 0.01).Regarding usage habits,47.66％ of the participating physicians would practice science popularization through their new media accounts and 71.23％ would forward approved health information within their professional realm.A validated instrument can be provided for further related studies.Conclusions: Science popularization is a specific usage of new media among Chinese medical professionals,through which they have achieved new authority and empowered communication because of self-media.To some extent,physician-patient relationships in China can be improved because this online interaction is conducive to building harmonious and lasting offline physician-patient relationships.