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In this thread there is a fair amount of "Google, MD" talk, so I'll add my own story. In medical school we were tasked with identifying an unusual cause of a b

In this thread there is a fair amount of "Google, MD" talk, so I'll add my own story. In medical school we were tasked with identifying an unusual cause of a baby's fussiness after eating. For the first time, everyone got the right answer. My professor wasn't sure whether to be proud of us for all doing deep reading into rare disease or to be angry that we had collaborated. But in fact, everyone had just popped the unusual findings into Google, which spat back the diagnosis of ALCAPA (anomalous left coronary artery from the pulmonary artery). Your doctor's brain is not the world's best device for information retrieval.

ythn 10y ago
I think this phenomenon is starting to extend to every field. For example, My wife's car would sometimes fail to start. However, later it would start with no problems. After a while I noticed it had a much higher no start rate when it was raining outside. We took it to the shop and I explained the situation, so they did a "wet test" and it turned up nothing. They explained that they were powerless to fix it without being able to reproduce it. I wasn't satisfied with that answer so I did my own research on google with the make/model of the car and concluded pretty quickly that the distributor cap was the problem. I took it back to the shop and specifically requested that they replace the distributor cap. They did, and the problem was resolved.
shiven 10y ago
Your doctor's brain is not the world's best device for information retrieval. As a former doctor, agree 100%. Still the medical profession seems to look down upon "information aid"-like technology. Beyond accurate physical examination and correctly entering the patient's history into a well-trained pattern-matching AI engine, doctors really don't need to be doing much in a first-world country. They need to be re-inserted into the workflow only if the treatment recommended by the automated/AI approach does not help. The brutal truth is that the vast majority of doctors, even specialists, will be incapable of correctly diagnosing and treating the very uncommon, rare and extremely rare medical conditions. "The eyes see what the mind thinks" - is absolutely applicable to 99% of doctors, who, for various reasons, would be more concerned with helping the 95% of their patients with obvious/common/easily-identifiable conditions that respond to their first or at most second line of treatment, than bother spending an inordinate amount of time, effort and energy on the remaining 5% who's death/suffering may well be considered the "cost of doing business". Bitter truth, from experience.
- ladytron 10y ago
  Yes, I believe this is what happened to my friend with the rare disease of late pregnancy. Even though she had a diagnosis, she was on a regular maternity ward. None of the nurses / Drs. Seemed to really want to learn about her condition or make sure she was being treated correctly for her disease. She "didn't fit". Her death or the baby's death would have been "the cost of doing business". Her doctor said 2 or 3 babies died of Choleostasis every YEAR, yet the nurses and doctors on the maternity ward were quite clueless.

ythn 10y ago

I think this phenomenon is starting to extend to every field. For example, My wife's car would sometimes fail to start. However, later it would start with no problems. After a while I noticed it had a much higher no start rate when it was raining outside. We took it to the shop and I explained the situation, so they did a "wet test" and it turned up nothing. They explained that they were powerless to fix it without being able to reproduce it. I wasn't satisfied with that answer so I did my own research on google with the make/model of the car and concluded pretty quickly that the distributor cap was the problem. I took it back to the shop and specifically requested that they replace the distributor cap. They did, and the problem was resolved.

shiven 10y ago

Your doctor's brain is not the world's best device for information retrieval. As a former doctor, agree 100%. Still the medical profession seems to look down upon "information aid"-like technology. Beyond accurate physical examination and correctly entering the patient's history into a well-trained pattern-matching AI engine, doctors really don't need to be doing much in a first-world country. They need to be re-inserted into the workflow only if the treatment recommended by the automated/AI approach does not help. The brutal truth is that the vast majority of doctors, even specialists, will be incapable of correctly diagnosing and treating the very uncommon, rare and extremely rare medical conditions. "The eyes see what the mind thinks" - is absolutely applicable to 99% of doctors, who, for various reasons, would be more concerned with helping the 95% of their patients with obvious/common/easily-identifiable conditions that respond to their first or at most second line of treatment, than bother spending an inordinate amount of time, effort and energy on the remaining 5% who's death/suffering may well be considered the "cost of doing business". Bitter truth, from experience.

ladytron 10y ago
Yes, I believe this is what happened to my friend with the rare disease of late pregnancy. Even though she had a diagnosis, she was on a regular maternity ward. None of the nurses / Drs. Seemed to really want to learn about her condition or make sure she was being treated correctly for her disease. She "didn't fit". Her death or the baby's death would have been "the cost of doing business". Her doctor said 2 or 3 babies died of Choleostasis every YEAR, yet the nurses and doctors on the maternity ward were quite clueless.