5 ms·

Our family doctor jokes that people come lately with: oh I googled what's wrong with me, I'm here just for a second opinion. :)

theprotocol 10y ago
I find it's a good sign that he jokes about it. I've encountered many doctors who were bitter and insecure about patients who researched their symptoms online, and reacted with a knee jerk, passive aggressive "you're a hypochondriac" prejudice that pervaded the diagnostic process.
- balabaster 10y ago
  It's definitely a good sign that he jokes about it, on the other hand, I would prefer a doctor that acts as a consultant, there to give proper advice. When I go to the doctor, I have Googled the symptoms I'm experiencing before I go. Once I've been given a diagnosis by the doctor, I Google the diagnosis to verify that I have the symptoms one would expect from such a diagnosis. Having had and heard too many experiences where Doctors got it wrong to huge detrimental effects, I want to double check what I've been told and not just blindly accept what one Doctor has judged in 30 seconds based on an initial perception of me without really knowing anything about me. I think if I've correlated what I thought was a possibility along with what the Doctor has diagnosed and the expected symptoms of that diagnosis, at least I can be confident to a degree that I can trust the diagnosis, prognosis and the course of action provided. If I am experiencing symptoms vastly different than I would expect from the diagnosis, I want to be asking questions as to how and why the doctor feels they are correct and I am incorrect. I realize I'm not a doctor, but in this day and age, for us all to have the world's information at our fingertips, to be blindly believing anyone whose advice could have catastrophic consequences on our health and lifespan is shortsighted at best and plane idiocy at worst. That doesn't make someone a hypochondriac, that makes someone cautious about misdiagnosis. Unfortunately, there are many hypochondriacs out there.
  - theprotocol 10y ago
    I have the exact same views as you on this. I've also experienced many, many years of consistent medical malpractice, to deleterious, life-ruining effects, so I had no choice but to take my health into my own hands and make rigorous determinations as to whether the doctors I would see were right or wrong. While most people may start off as hypochondriacs (who hasn't been spooked by the prospect of cancer after reading about it), the more research you do, the more accurate you become and in recent years I've finally managed to become effective at discerning good doctors vs bad ones.
    - balabaster 10y ago
      I never tended towards hypochondria. I do however have trust issues given the malpractice that I've witnessed over the years. I thank my lucky stars that I've never been directly on the receiving end of it. I'm firmly of the belief that we should treat our medical professionals as consultants and advisors, but we should be fully cognizant of our own health requirements.
- mindcrime 10y ago
  I've encountered many doctors who were bitter and insecure about patients who researched their symptoms online, and reacted with a knee jerk, passive aggressive "you're a hypochondriac" prejudice that pervaded the diagnostic process. I am very happy that my doctor is the opposite of this. If I had a doctor like that, I'd ditch him/her and find somebody new.
- noam87 10y ago
  I encountered two of those. Turns out it WAS cancer (stage IIIc by the time of diagnosis). Bring in the machines I say. (The astronomical savings to the taxpayer from earlier diagnoses is the cherry on top.)
  - theprotocol 10y ago
    Woah, I'm sorry for what happened to you. I got screwed over pretty badly because of the hypochondria confirmation bias as well. This is one area where I consider the debate about employment vs automation settled. Health comes first. Bring on the machines indeed.
    - rscho 10y ago
      The machines are already doing everything they are safely capable of. I can understand you being emotional about it, but you are overestimating the current value of machines in medicine by a huge margin. The medical system will have to change a lot before the clinical environment is machine-friendly enough. It will happen. But it is not doable as of today.
epalmer 10y ago
I took my desire to go carb free to my internal med doctor and cardiologist and backed it up with some limited research data. I was surprised they both said go for it and come back for blood work. My cardiologist is probably 65 and my internal med doctor is probably 40 to 45. I had Metabolic syndrome (prediabetic) and don't now. Still have slight elevated BP and weigh too much but I lost 50 lbs and my other blood work is amazingly good. I was expecting a battle with both of them. My cardiologist took me off if several meds as well.
mindcrime 10y ago
My GP encourages me to go online and research things for myself. When he first diagnosed me as diabetic, one of the first things he said was "go online and read up on diabetes, and then we'll talk it over in more detail when you come back in a month". There's also a phenomenon where patients can actually become more knowledgeable than their physicians (especially a GP who is a generalist by nature) regarding their specific condition(s). It might sound counter-intuitive, but think about it - a GP / Family Doctor has to know something about pretty much every condition under the sun. He / she doesn't have time to spend obsessively focusing on just, say, diabetes. Me, on the other hand, the only condition I care about is diabetes, so I can spend all my free time on Pubmed reading all the latest papers on the subject, etc. And as it happens, recently my diabetes took a turn for the worse. I was originally diagnosed as a type 2, and was being treated with metformin and my blood sugar had been stable for 5 years or so, but it took a big jump sometime in the past few months. I had read up on "type 1.5" diabetes / LADA, and had an inkling that might be my situation. So I read more on that before going to see my doctor, and when I got there, I was actually the one telling him which tests we should run to confirm/deny that scenario. (Note: of course he looked the stuff up to confirm it instead of just taking my word, but he was nodding and going "yep, you're right" as he was doing so). No AI involved, but I do believe the widespread availability of medical research / information at the patient level is a valuable thing. Yeah, some people probably annoy the shit out of their doctors with uninformed self-diagnosis, but I don't think that offsets the benefit of this information being available.

theprotocol 10y ago

I find it's a good sign that he jokes about it. I've encountered many doctors who were bitter and insecure about patients who researched their symptoms online, and reacted with a knee jerk, passive aggressive "you're a hypochondriac" prejudice that pervaded the diagnostic process.

balabaster 10y ago
It's definitely a good sign that he jokes about it, on the other hand, I would prefer a doctor that acts as a consultant, there to give proper advice. When I go to the doctor, I have Googled the symptoms I'm experiencing before I go. Once I've been given a diagnosis by the doctor, I Google the diagnosis to verify that I have the symptoms one would expect from such a diagnosis. Having had and heard too many experiences where Doctors got it wrong to huge detrimental effects, I want to double check what I've been told and not just blindly accept what one Doctor has judged in 30 seconds based on an initial perception of me without really knowing anything about me. I think if I've correlated what I thought was a possibility along with what the Doctor has diagnosed and the expected symptoms of that diagnosis, at least I can be confident to a degree that I can trust the diagnosis, prognosis and the course of action provided. If I am experiencing symptoms vastly different than I would expect from the diagnosis, I want to be asking questions as to how and why the doctor feels they are correct and I am incorrect. I realize I'm not a doctor, but in this day and age, for us all to have the world's information at our fingertips, to be blindly believing anyone whose advice could have catastrophic consequences on our health and lifespan is shortsighted at best and plane idiocy at worst. That doesn't make someone a hypochondriac, that makes someone cautious about misdiagnosis. Unfortunately, there are many hypochondriacs out there.
- theprotocol 10y ago
  I have the exact same views as you on this. I've also experienced many, many years of consistent medical malpractice, to deleterious, life-ruining effects, so I had no choice but to take my health into my own hands and make rigorous determinations as to whether the doctors I would see were right or wrong. While most people may start off as hypochondriacs (who hasn't been spooked by the prospect of cancer after reading about it), the more research you do, the more accurate you become and in recent years I've finally managed to become effective at discerning good doctors vs bad ones.
  - balabaster 10y ago
    I never tended towards hypochondria. I do however have trust issues given the malpractice that I've witnessed over the years. I thank my lucky stars that I've never been directly on the receiving end of it. I'm firmly of the belief that we should treat our medical professionals as consultants and advisors, but we should be fully cognizant of our own health requirements.
mindcrime 10y ago
I've encountered many doctors who were bitter and insecure about patients who researched their symptoms online, and reacted with a knee jerk, passive aggressive "you're a hypochondriac" prejudice that pervaded the diagnostic process. I am very happy that my doctor is the opposite of this. If I had a doctor like that, I'd ditch him/her and find somebody new.
noam87 10y ago
I encountered two of those. Turns out it WAS cancer (stage IIIc by the time of diagnosis). Bring in the machines I say. (The astronomical savings to the taxpayer from earlier diagnoses is the cherry on top.)
- theprotocol 10y ago
  Woah, I'm sorry for what happened to you. I got screwed over pretty badly because of the hypochondria confirmation bias as well. This is one area where I consider the debate about employment vs automation settled. Health comes first. Bring on the machines indeed.
  - rscho 10y ago
    The machines are already doing everything they are safely capable of. I can understand you being emotional about it, but you are overestimating the current value of machines in medicine by a huge margin. The medical system will have to change a lot before the clinical environment is machine-friendly enough. It will happen. But it is not doable as of today.

epalmer 10y ago

I took my desire to go carb free to my internal med doctor and cardiologist and backed it up with some limited research data. I was surprised they both said go for it and come back for blood work. My cardiologist is probably 65 and my internal med doctor is probably 40 to 45. I had Metabolic syndrome (prediabetic) and don't now. Still have slight elevated BP and weigh too much but I lost 50 lbs and my other blood work is amazingly good. I was expecting a battle with both of them. My cardiologist took me off if several meds as well.

mindcrime 10y ago

My GP encourages me to go online and research things for myself. When he first diagnosed me as diabetic, one of the first things he said was "go online and read up on diabetes, and then we'll talk it over in more detail when you come back in a month". There's also a phenomenon where patients can actually become more knowledgeable than their physicians (especially a GP who is a generalist by nature) regarding their specific condition(s). It might sound counter-intuitive, but think about it - a GP / Family Doctor has to know something about pretty much every condition under the sun. He / she doesn't have time to spend obsessively focusing on just, say, diabetes. Me, on the other hand, the only condition I care about is diabetes, so I can spend all my free time on Pubmed reading all the latest papers on the subject, etc. And as it happens, recently my diabetes took a turn for the worse. I was originally diagnosed as a type 2, and was being treated with metformin and my blood sugar had been stable for 5 years or so, but it took a big jump sometime in the past few months. I had read up on "type 1.5" diabetes / LADA, and had an inkling that might be my situation. So I read more on that before going to see my doctor, and when I got there, I was actually the one telling him which tests we should run to confirm/deny that scenario. (Note: of course he looked the stuff up to confirm it instead of just taking my word, but he was nodding and going "yep, you're right" as he was doing so). No AI involved, but I do believe the widespread availability of medical research / information at the patient level is a valuable thing. Yeah, some people probably annoy the shit out of their doctors with uninformed self-diagnosis, but I don't think that offsets the benefit of this information being available.