Man of Honour
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- 29 Mar 2003
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A report in the British Medical Journal has indicated that Google is an effective tool for doctors to use to diagnose and treat difficult cases. Doctors are reportedly using the search engine to keep up with increasing medical knowledge.
The researchers selected 26 published difficult cases and put their symptoms into the search engine. Google got 58% of the diagnoses right. Another study found doctors were 21% more likely to diagnose correctly if they had searched online.
The study also found that when clinical nurse consultants used a search engine, their diagnoses were as accurate as doctors. According to the research, Google was the preferred search engine because it was easy to use and free.
http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/2006/1784829.htm?health
The researchers selected 26 published difficult cases and put their symptoms into the search engine. Google got 58% of the diagnoses right. Another study found doctors were 21% more likely to diagnose correctly if they had searched online.
The study also found that when clinical nurse consultants used a search engine, their diagnoses were as accurate as doctors. According to the research, Google was the preferred search engine because it was easy to use and free.
http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/2006/1784829.htm?health
Google is extremely useful for finding medical knowledge. However it can be a right pain when patients turn up with pages and pages of information from the web matching their symptoms. It does have a habit of turning up the rarest of conditions. You'd be surprised how much people can be scared by the internet when matching up their symptoms. If you know what you're doing it's just like a really fast medical textbook. Doctors tend to know what common things are anyway without having to look at a book or the internet.
I double dare you..
Yeah thanks doc.