Net diagnosis can be bitter pill for GPs to swallow

LONDON: “Stop Googling your symptoms.” It’s pretty futile advice in the age of the internet, especially when this is where the vast majority of people with a health concern start looking for information.

It’s also potentially fatal advice, as the case of Bronte Doyne revealed this week. The teenager, who was suffering from a rare form of liver cancer, begged doctors to take her seriously after she found worrying details on her condition online. But they ignored her and in March 2013, the cancer did just what the internet said it would – it killed her.

The case, concluded Keith Girling, deputy medical director at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, has put the spotlight on how the availability of information online can challenge the way medics respond to increasingly informed patients.

“The days of doctors being patronising and offering oneway communication should be long over,” said GP Clare Gerada, who is all for patients turning to Google.

“The inter net has given patients the opportunity to be far better informed about their own health and I for one welcome that because it makes them much more likely to look after themselves and to seek medical advice when they find something is wrong.”

But all this comes with an important caveat, she said, and that is you can never replace clinical judgment. “This morning I had three patients, all with exactly the same symptoms – and each had a different diagnosis.”

GP Dr Pauline Brimblecombe agrees GPs should embrace googling of symptoms.

“I find these patients much easier to work with. The relationship feels more equal and I don’t have to spend so much time explaining everything. I often learn something new myself if they pass on interesting resources to me. Even when they come into the surgery misinformed, at least I can reassure them.” – The Independent