Who are your doctors? If you are a Healthy Survivor, so-called Dr. Google is not one of them.
Dr. Tracey Delaplain outlines "10 ways Internet diagnosing interferes with your health care: Dr. Google Will Never Know You or Care as Much As I Do. A few choice lines:
Dr. Google...can’t see you, can’t hear your story, can’t smell you, and can’t touch you. It doesn’t have intuition or gut feelings about you.
Dr. Google is wrong 59 percent of the time.
The Internet can’t listen.
The Internet can solidify an anchoring bias, [whereby patients] know what’s wrong with them, so they leave out important details and dispute any information from the physician that don’t fit their diagnosis.
Don’t let Dr. Google get between you and your physician.
If Dr. Google could cure you, then I’m guessing you wouldn’t be in my office.
You are two clicks away from garbage medical advice and junk science. I want you to educate yourself, and the Internet has a wealth of good information but be cautious.
Dr. Google doesn’t really care about your health. Does that shock you? It shouldn’t. The Internet will never replace human interaction. It can’t show you compassion, empathize with you, give you a shoulder to lean on, hold your hand, rejoice with you or grieve with you.
Healthy Survivors obtain sound knowledge and then work together with their healthcare team--expert and compassionate people--to use that knowledge wisely. Delaplain's complete post.
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