Doctors and the Internet


“On the Internet, every headache becomes a brain tumor in four clicks or less.”
-         Ron Gutman, HealthTap founder

I am not the guy who Google’s about health issues or medicines prescribed by doctors. My reason’s not that I don’t trust Google (after all, Google’s just the gateway to other sites). Rather, huge fan of the Internet though I am, I don’t believe in questioning professionals based on just about anything you can find on the Internet. And also as I read on this article, if you trust the Net on medical issues (aka Dr.Google):
“That weird pain in your side could mean appendicitis, food poisoning or pregnancy.  That nasty rash on your arm could be poison ivy, a spider bite or cancer.”
Turns out they even have a name for such diagnosis in four clicks: cyberchondria!

But I am obviously in the minority here. The 2 in 10 minority to be precise. A survey in the US showed that 8 in 10 Internet users say their last health-related search began with a search engine. It was also observed that the “diagnosis” of the health searchers differs from their doctors about one-fifth of the time. Which is a pretty good hit rate. Which is why doctors have started waking up to it.

After all, if the majority trusts Dr.Google, then doctors have to adapt to the Internet. They need to be prepared for counter questions from every layman; and unlike earlier times, they can’t be dismissive or condescending when responding. A few doctors are getting proactive: they warn patients about the irrelevant information they are likely to encounter online! Several doctors have even joined online sites like HealthTap and Ringadoc where patients can ask questions online or chat over a video-conference. Doctors hope this way they can ensure some level of quality and accuracy to the information patients encounter on the Wild, Wild Internet. And at the same time, this way doctors can become accessible via the forum that more and more patients go to, the Internet.

It’ll be interesting to see how that plays out.

Comments

  1. KumarJanuary 21, 2013 at 1:34 PM

    Interesting.

    I read this joke some time back, which is at an even more base level: "96% of young people have back ache and neck pain. The others do not have computers!"

    Not sure if this diagnosis for young people's backache is to be found in the internet, when the cyberchondria person wants to know what ails him/her.

    ReplyDelete

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