Can The Internet Replace Your Doctor?

November 29, 2007

The Internet vs. The Doctor. Which would you turn to first for medical advice?

According to a 2005 report by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, in a typical day more Americans went online for medical information than went to see their doctor. In 2005, 95 million Americans had turned to the Internet for medical information and that number has been rising ever since.

This is not too surprising. We spend unlimited amounts of time on the web these days. While during doctor visits, we are very limited to the amount of time we get to speak with our doctor and often times even feel rushed. As a result, we turn to Google to find needed information and then go to the doctor with any remaining questions. If at times you think you know more about your condition than does your doctor, you may be right. Many primary care physicans do not keep up with the latest details in areas such as cancer developments. If they aren’t specialists, they don’t have the time to track everything. Then when they need the extra knowledge, they too turn to the Internet for the most current information.

Why do we thirst for online medical information?

There are several reasons for our thirst for online medical information.

We turn to the Internet for help in making better informed decisions regarding treatments and our fates.
As patients, we are limited to time with our doctors. On the Internet we have more time to absorb information.
As we age, more chronic conditions pop up and it is easier and quicker to turn to the Internet for our research.
We are being asked by our insurance companies to take a bigger role in our insurance. With co-pays and reimbursements, we are required to be much more involved and we need to be fully informed.
Most of the diseases that killed our grandparents we knew little about. But now we know many of them can be managed and kept under control so we seek information through the Internet on how to do so. Take for instance heart disease or diabetes. A Google search for “heart disease” brings up nearly 112,000,000 pages of information.

How do we know the information is reliable?

While Google may lead us to millions of websites for us to research, no website can ever replace a doctor. Online information may be used to inform, but should never be used to diagnose. And while you may read thousands of articles on a particular illness, it could end up being a lot of conflicting information. But like there are great doctors, there are also great online medical sites available and they are loaded with reliable information. The trick is to be able to distinguish the good sites from the bad. You are more likely to do that by:

Determining where the site gets its information. Does it use good sources?
Find out the site’s intent. What is it’s goal? You can find out simply by reading the “About” page.
Be wary if a site endorses a particular product. Selling a product it endorses (or perhaps created) just may be it’s main goal.

To sum it up, you can get a lot of good online medical help. It could even be similar to getting a second opinion. However, no medical site is going to know your medical history or be able to properly diagnose your illness. And you most likely will never get the one-on-one advice that you will get from your doctor.

Can The Internet Replace Your Doctor?

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