Google & doctors

Bill Johnston alerted me to a story in the Metro free newspaper reporting on an article which showed that doctors could find some useful information on the internet to help diagnose illness and disease. I'm not sure this is something you could disagree with, in that with the very respectable sites from the US NIH and UK NHS etc. etc. of course there is some good information out there. However, it seems to have been interpreted in terms of "doctors only need to google symptoms, just like you could."

• Metro. (2006) "Doctors urged to Google for cures." Metro, 9 November.
  http://www.metro.co.uk/news/article.html?in_article_id=24627&in_page_id=34
• BBC News. (2006) "Google 'aids doctors' diagnoses'" 1o November http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6132856.stm
• The original article is: Tang, H. and Ng, J. (2006) "Googling for a diagnosis: use of Google as a diagnostic aid: internet based study" British Medical Journal. 10 November. doi:10.1136/bmj.39003.640567.AE

As interesting as anything else are the responses on the BMJ site (e.g. "This is research?") http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/
abstract/bmj.39003.640567.AEv1?hrss=1
Photo by Sheila Webber: Late blackberries, Nov 2006.