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"5 Reasons My Google Search Is Worth As Much As Your Medical Degree"

Kyla

ᴀɴɴɪᴇ ɢꜱᴀᴍᴩᴇʟ
Messages
721
Location
Canada
http://www.misstreated.org/blog/201...search-is-worth-more-than-your-medical-degree

The title of this article is a bit click-baity, but this is a great article on why Doctor's should listen to their patients and be open to them being experts on their own bodies and conditions.

Excerpt:

Now don’t get me wrong, becoming a doctor is no small feat. You have to go through four grueling years of medical school followed by an internship and years of residency. Not to mention the literal costs involved, including the hundreds of thousands of dollars to go to med school and opportunity costs. You don’t do any of this because you don’t care about people. And yet.

1459791399917

And yet, it sometimes feels like you, Dear Doctor, have been taught to hate the very people you’re attempting to treat. The most recent symbol of this, for me, is the mug floating around the internet which reads, “Please Do Not Confuse Your Google Search With My Medical Degree.” Could this be any more condescending? If you like to sip your coffee from this mug on your morning rounds, I have a few words for you.

Did you miss the studies showing that one of the best ways to improve patient outcomes (something you should be for, yes?) is engagement? What’s one of the best ways for patients to become more knowledgeable about their condition? Reading about it. Okay, and where can the public access information about virtually any medical condition? The internet!

Don’t get me wrong; there's a lot of nonsense on the internet. But that doesn’t mean it’s all nonsense. With a PubMed membership, your patient can read all the very same studies you can. Let me make clear, if you are fine with your patients reading articles on PubMed and only get upset when they get their advice from www.quackmedicine.net, I totally get it. If that’s you, carry on. I’m not speaking to you. Right now I’m talking to all the doctors who get annoyed at their patients for learning more about their condition. The doctors who see that either as the patient getting too big for their britches or as evidence that the patient must be a hypochondriac.

Contrary to what this condescending mug suggests, there are very good reasons for your patient to run a Google search or two about their symptoms. First and foremost...
 

meandthecat

Senior Member
Messages
206
Location
West country UK
What struck me was the response to such a reasonable artic!e, comments spiraling off into contempt and hatred. Why am I surprised? Probably for the same reasons I keep open the chance of being listened to or respected by a doctor.......but it brings with it alot of disappointment.
 

chipmunk1

Senior Member
Messages
765
Theoretical knowledge can be great but sometimes just having had chronic illness for many years can teach you far more than a book ever could.

Doctors will often do just a Pubmed search and repeat the conclusions of the abstract (see PACE for example).

Then they will insist they are right because they have a medical degree.

This happened to me. Months of research which would include hundreds of Pubmed studies were irrelevant because the doctor did a single Pubmed query and didn't bother to look for more than 5 minutes.

Then I am expected to blindly accept their "expertise".
 
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CCC

Senior Member
Messages
457
I print out the whole article and hand it over, then ask for the blood test we want, using the article as the explanation. A good doctor is interested.

Great article, by the way. It's exactly how some doctors treat their patients.
 

Jonathan Edwards

"Gibberish"
Messages
5,256
I used to use Wikipedia - until I discovered Phoenix Rising!

I like the sentence from the 'RN' (whatever important qualification that might be) 'But that being said, a diagnosis doesn't come out of an ass; it comes from an algorithm based on years of research from people who do this for a living, not a bored suburban stay at home mom.' - Little do they know. I have no more used an algorithm than a Salsa rhythm (actually one of my PhD student did take me Salsa dancing once but we decided it was better for me to sit out while she danced with Mexicans).

I now use Google in preference to Pubmed for trawling data. Except in ME where someone on this site has always got there first.

There are two sides to every argument but I vote for the author here.
 

msf

Senior Member
Messages
3,650
Talking of algorithms, I propose we replace GPs with Doctor Google.

The robot doctor will see you now...
 

Comet

I'm Not Imaginary
Messages
693
Great blog post. Misogyny, dismissiveness, lack of true interest or compassion from the Medicals, lack of applying the individuality of a patient to a diagnosis, lack of actual thinking... yep... been there... experienced that.
 

u&iraok

Senior Member
Messages
427
Location
U.S.
http://www.misstreated.org/blog/201...search-is-worth-more-than-your-medical-degree

The title of this article is a bit click-baity, but this is a great article on why Doctor's should listen to their patients and be open to them being experts on their own bodies and conditions.

Excerpt:

I've seen a lot of cases where doctors don't want to suggest it but they are hoping you do your research. When you do they give a sigh of relief, as if they were thinking they couldn't suggest it but they don't have enough time to do the research they need to help you so hopefully you will do it.

Often, too, they agree that you should follow what you researched.

I remember when I had candida and was seeing an naturopath/nutritionist for it but I needed a blood test so I went to my doctor for it. I had spent hours researching candida and then found my ND's website and read for hours about candida on his site and he also taught me about it. My doctor asked me many questions about it and we talked about it for a long time. I knew more about it then he did. At least he wanted to learn.
 

Richard7

Senior Member
Messages
772
Location
Australia
@chipmunk1 My sister had a similar experience. Saw the doctor, got advice, followed the advice; took an idle moment to read the papers, and realised that he had relied on misleading abstracts. What joy.

And this was not a doctor who was not interested, just, I suspect, one who was trying to do too much in too little time.
 

Hip

Senior Member
Messages
17,824
I've visited a doctor who looked up something on Wikipedia and quoted it to me. (not joking at all).

The funniest experience I had years ago was on website that allowed you to pay for an online consultation with a doctor: you wrote down your symptoms, paid anything from $5 to $50, depending on how much of the doctor's time you wanted, and then the doctor would send you their response and some diagnostic suggestions. I think I paid $10.

When I got the my reply, it was a paragraph that I had written myself, copied from my very own website!

I did not have the heart to tell the doctor, though.
 
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JaimeS

Senior Member
Messages
3,408
Location
Silicon Valley, CA
When I got the my reply, it was a paragraph that I had written myself, copied from my very own website!

I did not have the heart to tell the doctor, though.

These are some of the funniest comments I've read on PR in a long time. That's dramatic irony for you.

I liked the comment on the article that stated something along the lines of, "we can all learn how to properly read science. After all, the doctors had to learn as well." I'm not sure what people think happens at medical school, but no one waves a magic wand that confers all knowledge! Physicians-in-training have to learn how to read through science, dissect and dismiss bad science, and learn to reject appeals to authority and appeals to popularity, just like the rest of us.

-J
 

Skippa

Anti-BS
Messages
841
I sometimes think that the difference between a certified medic and a layman is the fact that the certified medic has learned the name of each and every bone in the human body.

"I'm right, because I know the name of the bone, you're just pointing"...

Being a good doctor and being a good scientist are not synonymous. But they should be.
 
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alex3619

Senior Member
Messages
13,810
Location
Logan, Queensland, Australia
These are some of the funniest comments I've read on PR in a long time. That's dramatic irony for you.

I liked the comment on the article that stated something along the lines of, "we can all learn how to properly read science. After all, the doctors had to learn as well." I'm not sure what people think happens at medical school, but no one waves a magic wand that confers all knowledge! Physicians-in-training have to learn how to read through science, dissect and dismiss bad science, and learn to reject appeals to authority and appeals to popularity, just like the rest of us.

-J
This is the point of the evidence based practice movement, which is different from evidence based medicine. Doctors need to learn these skills or the entire profession will become increasingly irrelevant. Dogmatic solutions, dogmatic practice, rather than problem solving, can be done by someone with very little training. The real need for doctors is to observe, think outside the box, and take the best strategy for a specific patient, and not the most recommended one in general.
 

chipmunk1

Senior Member
Messages
765
I liked the comment on the article that stated something along the lines of, "we can all learn how to properly read science. After all, the doctors had to learn as well." I'm not sure what people think happens at medical school, but no one waves a magic wand that confers all knowledge!

They don't learn that much about science in med school. Not much different from many other college degrees.

Also they learn very little about psychology/psychiatry.

So if someone has a MD degree they should be knowledgable about the human body but that doesn't necessarily mean that they are scientists or can read scientific publications or that they are expert psychologists.