An interesting article in today's Wall Street Journal points out the downside of the wealth of medical information on the web. Excerpt:
The proliferation of medical information over the Internet has helped people take more responsibility for their health. Patients are able to educate themselves in ways we never thought of several years ago. It seems that individuals affected by nearly any medical condition have a Web community to turn to for support and education. The Web lets patients help each other and takes some of the work of patient education off of the doctor's hands.
As a physician, I'm not troubled by the autonomy of the informed patient. What troubles me is the proliferation of the partially informed patient and, frankly, the misinformed patient -- the patient who crosses the line from Internet-educated patient to cyberchondriac.
[...]
When a patient comes to me with a set of symptoms that is concerning them, I apply my skills in history-taking and my years of experience in evaluating similar problems, and I formulate a list of possibilities. Doctors call this process developing a differential diagnosis.
It takes about five years of daily medical training to get good at developing and narrowing down the list in an efficient manner. The average patient doesn't have this background and sifts through the possibilities they read about without the benefit of experience as a filter.
Link: WSJ.com - The Doctor's Office - From Web-Savvy Patient to a 'Cyberchondriac'.
Via Slashdot.
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