Symptoms
Real healthcare occurs outside of the doctor's office and hospitals, not when the patient shows up to make a complaint once their symptoms have developed ― Emmanuel Fombu
image by: Nick Kenrick
HWN Recommends
The right way to google your symptoms
Is googling your symptoms a good idea or a bad idea? One way to find out is to google this question. Type “googling symptoms” into Google’s search bar, and you’ll be confronted by a slew of headlines like “Doctors really, really want you to stop googling your symptoms” and “Here’s why googling your symptoms is a terrible idea” and even “Googling your symptoms is more dangerous than cancer itself.” In seconds, you will understand that googling your symptoms is a terrible thing to do and that you should stop immediately. Still, about 1% of all Google searches, which corresponds to millions of searches, are related to medical symptoms.
But it isn’t true that there’s no upside to googling…
Resources
Millennials And Healthy Living: It's About Online Content, Not Doctors' Visits
Millennials are connected to each other, and they trust each other, rather than institutions and manufacturers. If a millennial wants to quit smoking for example, he will often search for related blogs and social media resolution posts from others who have been through the same experience to get advice and support from those people.
People with Illnesses Talk About the Symptom They Shouldn't Have Ignored
If you think you might be sick, here's an idea: Ask a doctor what they think.
Can a Crowdsourced AI Medical Diagnosis App Outperform Your Doctor?
The Human Dx platform aims to improve the accuracy of individual physicians.
Google Wants to Help You Research Medical Symptoms Without Activating Your Hypochondria
Sometimes when you’re feeling ill, the only thing worse than uncertainty is a little bit of knowledge. Start searching for more information about your symptoms, and you’ll be sent spiraling, each twitch and twinge a signifier of some unfolding tragedy.
Googling our medical symptoms is making us sicker
It’s time for medical ethics to migrate online. The question is: Can Dr. Google abide by one of the main tenets of the Hippocratic oath, which doctors swear to at the beginning of their medical practice? Primum non nocere—”First, do no harm.”
If Symptoms Persist, Text Your Doctor
So why isn't access to doctors more electronic? Confidentiality is one concern, and not every patient wants to text -- but a lot more than ten percent do.
Your Physician Is Googling Your Symptoms Too
It turns out that only professional journals and colleagues outrank search engines, and 46 percent of physicians cite Google and its ilk as frequent sources of information. Sorry drug reps, better luck next time...
The right way to google your symptoms
Despite what many might say, Google is a powerful tool with great potential for health and medicine, if we go about this the right way. One entity that understands this is Google itself. The company has partnered with world-class health and medical institutions, such as Harvard and Mayo Clinic, to improve the accuracy and usefulness of online symptom searching. One thing is for sure: giving up and telling people not to google their symptoms is counterproductive and may even be a missed opportunity.
DDx
DDx is medical shorthand for differential diagnosis, and this is a podcast about how doctors think and learn on the job. It’s hosted by Dr. Raj Bhardwaj and is produced by Figure 1, the global knowledge-sharing platform for medicine.
Diagnosis
Dr. Lisa Sanders recreates hard-to-solve medical case studies.
Introducing Stitches!
Your Path to Meaningful Connections in the World of Health and Medicine
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Coming Soon - Stitches, the innovative chat app from the creators of HWN. Join meaningful conversations on health and medical topics. Share text, images, and videos seamlessly. Connect directly within HWN's topic pages and articles.
