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:
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.
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...