Physicians are doing exactly what their patients have been doing for years – Googling your illness.
I don’t know how many times I’ve Googled my own symtpoms and have diagnosed myself with some rare form of fingernail cancer that only happens in third world tropics, ya know what I’m saying? I’ll never forget the day my mother called me to say that she’d been Googling the symptoms my father was having and afraid he had cervical cancer.
Forget the fact that he would require a cervix before that diagnosis could be made.
Lets hope that our doctors are a bit better at pin-pointing diseases via Google than my mother or I.
6:58 pm on November 10th, 2006
Ding ding ding, you’re right. If you let a patient talk long enough they’ll tell you exactly what’s wrong with them, but they’ll do it faster if they’ve searched the internet. I use google myself – sometimes to supplement my “definitive texts” and sometimes to see what the patients are seeing. Anyway google away.
Dr. Soandso
11:20 pm on November 10th, 2006
wow. that’s insane. i hope my doctor never turns to google to see what i have. i fear now!!
4:10 pm on November 12th, 2006
But it’s not like I get a lollypop after googling myself healthy!