Is there a Google in the house?

[GomJabbar]

That's the thing, there is never really "enough" schooling for anybody, just more things to learn; which is great.

At least on that point we can agree.

(Since this is the "Off Topic Stuff" forum, it's okay to digress from the thread's topic, right?)

No problem with me. I enjoy following the discussion wherever it may lead.
I've been guilty to veer a few threads OT myself. [have to watch out for the P.C. Thread Police though]

[GomJabbar]

To add some more fuel to the fire.....

Baffled GPs urged to try diagnosis by Google

Embarrassing as it may seem to professionals trained for many years in medicine, Google can often come up with the right answer.

In one case described in The New England Journal of Medicine, a doctor astonished her colleagues, who included an eminent professor, by correctly diagnosing Ipex (immunodeficiency, polyendocrinopathy, enteropathy, X-linked) syndrome.

It just “popped right out” after she entered the salient features into Google, she admitted.
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And GPs who grumble when their patients turn up with printouts from the internet claiming that they have some obscure disease will have to be more circumspect. Having access to Google, the patients might just be right.

The doctors started their research after examining a 16-year-old water polo player with a blockage in a vein, and explaining that the cause was uncertain.

His father immediately interrupted to say: “But of course he has Paget-von Schrötter syndrome.” He had successfully Googled the symptoms and proceeded to give the doctors a mini-tutorial on the cause of the condition — huge neck muscles compressing the axillary vein — and the correct treatment.

For rare diseases, just try Google

"Web-based search engines such as Google are becoming the latest tools in clinical medicine, and doctors in training need to become proficient in their use," Tang said in the study published online by the British Medical Journal.

The authors add a caveat, however: the results from Google are only as good as the knowledge base of the searcher - a caution that especially applies to patients who try to self-diagnose their problems.

[christopher_wolf]

See? This is what we, hopefully, have natural selection for. The Darwin Awards might fit quite nicely

The more people that diagnose themselves on Google, the more will be weeded out.

Remember the old adage that a Doctor that is his own patient is a Fool? Yeah, well this adds the masses to it.

The insanity continues....

[GomJabbar]

Googling successfully is bit of a learned art. A n00b who tries to find relevant information on a topic often receives so many hits that cover the gamut, that he doesn't know what to do with it all. He has trouble separating the wheat from the chaff. Someone who can Google, find a diagnosis, and have some degree of confidence in his finding has to have a measure of intellegence IMO. Yes, the diagnosis may be wrong, but doctors have been known to misdiagnose cases themselves. I gave one personal example near the beginning of this thread. Two more came to mind since.

My aunt had a best friend who was experiencing some chest pains. She went to her physician, who after examination told her that nothing serious was wrong. Two weeks later she was found dead in her car in a police parking lot. She had suffered a heart attack while driving, and managed to get to the police station hoping to get some help, but never managed to get out of the car.

My best friend's mother-in-law developed a chronic cough. When she went to see the docter about it, she was told it was nothing serious. Within a couple of years she was dead from lung cancer.

It is true that the doctor that is his own patient is the fool. Of course this applies to anyone, doctor or not, who tries to self diagnose without seeking a doctor (not themself) to confirm the diagnosis and treatment. Sometimes second or even third opinions from other physicians are called for. Even the tight-fisted insurance industry sees value in that. I believe a person who has the wherewithal to research a condition they may be having, is better equiped to verify that their doctor is making wise choices in diagnosis and treatment. That person is also more likely to seek a second or third opinion if the first doctor's diagnosis or treatment may seem hasty, suspect, or extreme. Google can be a useful "tool" for patient and doctor alike, if it is used in the proper context.

[christopher_wolf]

This is *extremely* similar to what people do to their computers day after day after day. Given the rising trends in obesity, including childhood obesity, this isn't something new. There are a large percentage of people out their that don't care, or act naive, about what they put in their bodies and the lack of exercise they get. Same for computers, which is why malware exists and why users on networks get limited permissions.

The world is not full of people who do all the right things all at the right time; the utopian view that, even given very powerful knowledge, people will know exactly what to do is far more dangerous. There is a difference between an unorganized mass of data, knowledge, and wisdom...this difference is a fine line, but it is a distinction nevertheless.

In addition, all the Googling that could have been done would have, sadly, not saved your aunt either. Yet that has nothing to do with this at all and is more of a compliant against the doctor than anything else. Do you really think that Googling for chest pains could have saved her instead? Instead of proper preventive medicine? How many informative sources are out there by the AMA that actually *inform* people about heart disease and how to help prevent heart attacks on their own that mention constant "Chest Pain? As such, this has become simply a more advanced form of information already given out in AMA pamphlets.

Doctors are often put in these positions and have tremendous loads placed on them, day to day they have to put up with massive responsibilities that entail the balance of human life and every competent doctor out there not only knows this, but does it to the utmost of the abilities to make sure that they can enhance the health of the patient. Not every case can have the 100% positive outcome that is desired because there are still many unknowns, but that is no excuse for throwing in the towel, and going off grabbing everything that might be able to help no matter what the consequences (which can be pretty dire).

Information without context is useless, knowing what context to put it in is pricless, but there is a large majority of people that do not or cannot do that.

[skitty4gzus]

the bare truth is medicine has helped to increase life span for most of us in the 1st world. The advancements in medicine are insane and mind boggling. I mean look we have developed artificial hearts! The most complex machine man will ever know is the human body. We can grow new ears on the backs of rats! I would rather be alive today than in the 1920's. I know accidents happen, but also Dr's only work with what we give them. We can't just cruise in and say my body hurts a little, I think I should have a CT scan and an MRI of my whole body to see what it is. Like i said earlier, being a doctor is not like driving a school bus or flipping burgers. I give them an extremely large benefit of the doubt because I have the utmost respect.

[GomJabbar]

My aunt died of old age. It was her friend I referred to above. Regardless, the point I was trying to make in the anecdote was that even doctors make errors in diagnosis at times. A patient should not just blindly trust their doctor. If there is reason to believe the diagnosis could be incorrect, then if possible the patient should get more opinions. A patient (or someone close to the patient) armed with knowledge, whether gained from medical books or Google, is better eguipped to effect the outcome positively in a health event.

FTR, this particular incident with my aunt's friend took place back in the late 1960's - well before Google and the internet. So yeah, Google could not have helped her.

If anyone reading this thread thinks that I don't respect doctors, I want to say that it is not my purpose to degrade them. I know that doctors go through extensive schooling to get where they are. It takes hard work, dedication, and a certain amount of grey matter upstairs to become a doctor. Yet, even with all that, as the saying goes "to err is human", and doctors are still human. There is another saying "Plans go wrong for lack of advice; many advisers bring success." - Proverbs 15:22, New Living Translation. This advice from King Solomon (who was well-known for his wisdom) is well heeded. Advice can be direct from a doctor or friend, or indirect from a written source.