Doctors use Google to diagnose disease: study

Source:
www.abc.net.au...

Ok, so knowing to ask the right Questions and having proper searching techniques
and a Broadband connection to the net will make me a better Doctor?

We should have a Study where College and University Students use Google to try to diagnose a disease against real Family Doctors and compare the Sucess rate.

I don't think the Medical community will go for this though

Millions of facts

Doctors have been estimated to carry 2 million facts in their heads to help them to diagnose disease, the researchers say.

But search engines allow them to get quick access to an ever increasing medical knowledge base that might be impossible to hold in their head.

Google in particular gives access to more than 3 billion articles, they say, with Google Scholar restricting searches to peer reviewed articles.

Dr Tang says while there are a number of other search engines that clinicians can use, they often prefer Google because it is so easy to use and freely available.

So that's what it comes down to.....ease of use and cheap. Designing a search engine dedicated for medical practicioners makes more sense, but hell what do I know I'm no Doctor!

Another interesting finding was that clinical nurse consultants using the search engines were just as accurate as doctors

See? were getting somewhere!

Professor Westbrook says that while Google might be good for helping find information about diseases with unique symptoms, more sophisticated search engines would be required for more complex diseases.

Prof. Westbrook is up to something.....

Originally posted by a1ex
Ok, so knowing to ask the right Questions and having proper searching techniques
and a Broadband connection to the net will make me a better Doctor?

Yes! So will networking with other Doctors who have experience, using the phone and reading up to date Medical Journals, and probably lots more too.

We should have a Study where College and University Students use Google to try to diagnose a disease against real Family Doctors and compare the Sucess rate.

Sounds good, as most studies do. Google is just a search engine, are you not liking the fact they use a search engine we all use? Or do you dislike their use of the Internet with help in diagnosis?

I don't think the Medical community will go for this though

Go for what? The use of the Internet as a tool in diagnosis and recent sceintific findings? A tad strange...

Another interesting finding was that clinical nurse consultants using the search engines were just as accurate as doctors

See? were getting somewhere!

Not sure again by what you mean? Are you saying that it is a bad thing that nurses can be as accurate as doctors with the help of search engines?

Maybe we should compare ordinary people and their accuracy using Google against both nurses and doctors. Now that would be interesting!

Good find.

So what are they up to?

...I found an article last week or so about a new program, supported by Big Pharma, that links disease presentation and symptoms with... you guessed it - drug treatments!

It's all about giving the drug manufacturers a shot in the arm, imo.


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