I hope by now you've completed that homework assignment...
Of course that's why I gave such a long delay. Homework is tough, and you're all busy people. For those of you that figured it out on your own, well done. Top drawer. Gold star. For those of you that figured out that all you needed to do was go read the other blog, you get TWO gold stars, because you actually used the hint I gave instead of making it hard on yourself for no good reason.
Among the myriad other reasons why I didn't post anything in the last two months are: exams, the weather, and not having much to say. I also didn't get any requests from readers for a new blog post. But I can't blame you guys, you were probably doing the homework.
Anyway, I finally have stuff to say. Anatomy is well over by now, but there's loads of other stuff going on. First of all, I need to explain the homework answer. Actually, I need to give it, I see now that I haven't yet done that.
The question was, why would I bother putting an account of my tonsillectomy on the internet in blog form, considering how much effort it took (not that much, to be honest) and how many other internet accounts there are already (loads). The answer is that most of the other internet accounts are negative and I was a bit skeptical at first that the procedure could really be all that bad. I didn't make up at the outset for it to be a glowing review of tonsillectomies (clearly that would not read so genuine) but rather to just be an honest report of what happened. If it ended up terrible, I'd have put that in (assuming I survived). But thankfully, it was really not such a big deal. And now, I'm happy that I wrote it all down in a blog because maybe someone, somewhere, sometime, will stumble upon it, read it (or just look at the pictures) and be comforted by the fact that at least one person didn't think it was such an awful thing. In my ideal world, this person will then get the surgery and experience a similar recovery, write a note of thanks in the comments section, and maybe wire me a year's tuition via PayPal.
But what I want to explore today is why people would write so many negative accounts on the internet. Why is the internet the LAST place that doctors say you should go for medical advice? Do they just want to collect the money from your office visit? I like to think there's more to it than that. In fact, I like to think it's not like that at all.
We know from our days of watching Barney the Dinosaur that we are all special. No two people are alike. Geneticists will tell you Barney is exactly right. There are so many different variations we all have built into our bodies, not just height, eye color, and facial structure, but way more specific, like the encoding of this protein and not that one, etc. We really are like snowflakes. Some people clear drugs from their systems faster than others, which explains why your friend might only take one Tylenol to feel better, while you need three (it might also have something to do with you injuring yourself so horribly. Quit doing that.).
This is part (a tiny part) of the reason why people experience diseases in such a different way. One person's diabetes might be manageable, while another's very difficult. Weight loss, the same thing. Heart disease, strokes, the list goes on. Medical advice can't really be effectively given en masse. It takes some interviewing, history-taking, and getting to know a patient before one can offer proper, personalized medical advice.
"Wait- personalized medical advice??? Just for me??" You ask. Yes, just for you. Tailored to you, specifically.
Doesn't that sound good???
That's very marketable!
People should REALLY like that!
So why don't they?
I mean, don't get me wrong... they do. People DO go see their doctors, of course, and they DO go ask them about what to do for X and Y condition. That's not what I'm saying. What I mean is that internet resources and television shows with doctors (and sometimes people who only play one on TV) giving advice to anyone who will listen/read are doing very well. WebMD gets how many hits per day? A few levels worse, how about Yahoo! Answers, the Health category. I bet that gets in the millions per week.
Why?
Because it's easier, of course.
But there are some big problems with that. Right off the top of my head:
1) Accuracy of information (much better with WebMD or even usually Wikipedia than Yahoo! Answers, for example... yet people still ask Yahoo!)
2) White coat syndrome - lots of people seem to have some kind of anti-modern-medicine thing going on. They can say misleading or false things just to try to get you to avoid seeing your doc.
3) No personalization - if someone needs to lose some weight, and they go check google quickly for how to lose a few pounds, they may find some programs that are completely unrealistic for them, and then get frustrated when they don't work. (Yes, it also means they might not be trying so hard if they only Googled it, but it's rude and wrong to judge people like that. Googling it is a start!)
So what can we, as future physicians, do about internet medicine?? Can we do anything at all? Should we?
Among the myriad other reasons why I didn't post anything in the last two months are: exams, the weather, and not having much to say. I also didn't get any requests from readers for a new blog post. But I can't blame you guys, you were probably doing the homework.
Anyway, I finally have stuff to say. Anatomy is well over by now, but there's loads of other stuff going on. First of all, I need to explain the homework answer. Actually, I need to give it, I see now that I haven't yet done that.
The question was, why would I bother putting an account of my tonsillectomy on the internet in blog form, considering how much effort it took (not that much, to be honest) and how many other internet accounts there are already (loads). The answer is that most of the other internet accounts are negative and I was a bit skeptical at first that the procedure could really be all that bad. I didn't make up at the outset for it to be a glowing review of tonsillectomies (clearly that would not read so genuine) but rather to just be an honest report of what happened. If it ended up terrible, I'd have put that in (assuming I survived). But thankfully, it was really not such a big deal. And now, I'm happy that I wrote it all down in a blog because maybe someone, somewhere, sometime, will stumble upon it, read it (or just look at the pictures) and be comforted by the fact that at least one person didn't think it was such an awful thing. In my ideal world, this person will then get the surgery and experience a similar recovery, write a note of thanks in the comments section, and maybe wire me a year's tuition via PayPal.
But what I want to explore today is why people would write so many negative accounts on the internet. Why is the internet the LAST place that doctors say you should go for medical advice? Do they just want to collect the money from your office visit? I like to think there's more to it than that. In fact, I like to think it's not like that at all.
We know from our days of watching Barney the Dinosaur that we are all special. No two people are alike. Geneticists will tell you Barney is exactly right. There are so many different variations we all have built into our bodies, not just height, eye color, and facial structure, but way more specific, like the encoding of this protein and not that one, etc. We really are like snowflakes. Some people clear drugs from their systems faster than others, which explains why your friend might only take one Tylenol to feel better, while you need three (it might also have something to do with you injuring yourself so horribly. Quit doing that.).
This is part (a tiny part) of the reason why people experience diseases in such a different way. One person's diabetes might be manageable, while another's very difficult. Weight loss, the same thing. Heart disease, strokes, the list goes on. Medical advice can't really be effectively given en masse. It takes some interviewing, history-taking, and getting to know a patient before one can offer proper, personalized medical advice.
"Wait- personalized medical advice??? Just for me??" You ask. Yes, just for you. Tailored to you, specifically.
Doesn't that sound good???
That's very marketable!
People should REALLY like that!
So why don't they?
I mean, don't get me wrong... they do. People DO go see their doctors, of course, and they DO go ask them about what to do for X and Y condition. That's not what I'm saying. What I mean is that internet resources and television shows with doctors (and sometimes people who only play one on TV) giving advice to anyone who will listen/read are doing very well. WebMD gets how many hits per day? A few levels worse, how about Yahoo! Answers, the Health category. I bet that gets in the millions per week.
Why?
Because it's easier, of course.
But there are some big problems with that. Right off the top of my head:
1) Accuracy of information (much better with WebMD or even usually Wikipedia than Yahoo! Answers, for example... yet people still ask Yahoo!)
2) White coat syndrome - lots of people seem to have some kind of anti-modern-medicine thing going on. They can say misleading or false things just to try to get you to avoid seeing your doc.
3) No personalization - if someone needs to lose some weight, and they go check google quickly for how to lose a few pounds, they may find some programs that are completely unrealistic for them, and then get frustrated when they don't work. (Yes, it also means they might not be trying so hard if they only Googled it, but it's rude and wrong to judge people like that. Googling it is a start!)
So what can we, as future physicians, do about internet medicine?? Can we do anything at all? Should we?
i love your posts they are so well-written, thanks for writing this
ReplyDeleteThanks for the support, John! I hope to keep 'em coming...
ReplyDelete