Article on Doctors Googling !

[reddevil]

Hi,

The doctor who checked out my lump told me is was nothing serious and wrote it down what it was called and told me to go home and look it up on the web. I would of prefered to of been told by the doctor.

Red

[Insomniac]

Had to laugh when I heard this on the news today. But then my sense of humour is strange. I had just been reading about someone googling and worrying then that they were terribly ill. Maybe its a useful source of info for them (as they have studied medicine) but we should definitely give it a wide berth when it comes to symptoms!!



Lisa.

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.

[ksmith]

The article does say the doctors who are googling are human experts so I expect they're typing in more specific stuff than most of us do.

Last week I googled the term 'over salivation' and had to laugh when most of the sites that came up were about canine disorders!!! Anyway, now its mysteriously disappeared .....

Used responsibly, I can understand why Doctors find the net to be a good resource. Years ago, they'd have just looked up symptoms in great big medical books.

Kay x

[Lousy Hero]

<b id="quote">quote:</b id="quote"><table border="0" id="quote"><tr id="quote"><td class="quote" id="quote">yep!
When I saw doc a few weeks ago,he was only bloody googling right there in front of me,about pills etc.:(
I may as well treat myself.[:O]


<div align="right">Originally posted by Fly2Freedom - 10 November 2006 : 15:35:41</div id="right">
</td id="quote"></tr id="quote"></table id="quote">

Couldnt have put it better myself

Religion? Communism? No, Love is the Opiate of the People

[Sheik N Shimmy]

<b id="quote">quote:</b id="quote"><table border="0" id="quote"><tr id="quote"><td class="quote" id="quote">Last week I googled the term 'over salivation' and had to laugh when most of the sites that came up were about canine disorders!!! <div align="right">Originally posted by ksmith - 10 November 2006 : 17:25:50</div id="right">
</td id="quote"></tr id="quote"></table id="quote">

Kay,

Is your surname 'Nine' by any chance? [:P]

Keep On Keepin On

[ksmith]

lol ..... woof woof



Kay 9 x

[lass]

I can see that the internet is a very useful tool for doctors, but I'm not so sure about Google.

I can understand them looking at the web to link symptoms for rarer illnesses, or to find out quickly about specific medication, or even to find articles that help patients understand about their illnesses.

But if my GP were to google my symptoms to look for a diagnosis, surely she would come back with the same results that I get - in which case, we'd all be doomed!

By the way, I watched a programme once that talked about people searching on the internet for symptoms/diagnosis, and it said there are very few websites that are credible - however one that it did rate was patient.co.uk as an accurate source of information. Don't think you can self-diagnose on here, but if you are diagnosed with an illness it is very good for finding out more about it.