Tuesday, January 13, 2015
A “check up” on Internet medical advice
“Please don’t get your medical advice from the internet.” I
have said that repeatedly to friends, family, and even in previous health
columns. Medical advice is what primary care providers are for.
A case in point:
my friend read something on the web about her symptoms and became
extremely anxious and upset. A
week later, when she finally sat down and discussed it with her primary care
provider, she was relieved to find that the web advice was totally false. She had wasted valuable time and
energy, did some foolish treatment that could have resulted in serious side effects,
and spent a week in anguish for nothing. Her doctor reassured her and set her on the right course of
treatment. Naturally, she vows
never to repeat that foolish action again.
“I want patients to know that every person has a unique
genetic makeup,” says Dr. Christopher Awtrey, of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical
Center in Boston, reaffirming why people should not rely on Googling to get
medical advice. One person may require vastly different treatment than someone
else receiving the same diagnosis.
Now, that being said, there are some internet sites where
accurate and reliable information can be found. Good sources of health information include:
• Sites that end in ".gov," sponsored by the federal
government, like the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (www.hhs.gov), the National Institutes of Health
(www.nih.gov), and the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention (www.cdc.gov).
• .edu sites, created by universities or medical schools, such
as Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine or University of California at
Berkeley Hospital, or other healthcare facility sites, like Mayo Clinic and
Cleveland Clinic.
• .org sites maintained by not-for-profit groups whose focus
is research and teaching the public about specific diseases or conditions, such
as the American Diabetes Association, the American Heart Association and, of
course, hospitals like Backus.
• Sites whose addresses end in .com are usually commercial
sites and are often selling products.
I asked Dr. John Greeley, a primary care physician at the
Backus Family Health Center at Crossroads in Waterford to weigh in on this issue
and this is his response:
“There are many sources of health information out there and
I don’t mind if people search for information on the internet, as long as they
bring their questions and concerns to me at their next appointment so I can
validate the information and we can proceed with an appropriate plan. Seeking information from the internet
and other sources is a great starting point, but patients should not act on
this information without first filtering it through their physician,” Dr. Greeley said.
Sounds like very good advice we can all live with.
Alice Facente is a community health nurse for the Backus Health System. This advice should not replace the advice of your personal health care provider. To comment on this column or others, visit the Healthy Living blog at www.healthydocs.blogspot.com or e-mail Ms. Facente or any of the Healthy Living columnists at healthyliving@wwbh.org