Some of the most dreaded words by GPs far and wide is, ‘I read on Google that….” Or worse still, patients in fear of things they’ve read on social media. When can self-diagnosis help?
COVID-19 has inspired many armchair experts! In fact, it’s amazing how many people with no medical or scientific background happily post health ‘facts’ that go viral.
Which leads to many patients being badly led astray when they Google their symptoms. Many GPs face terrified patients or ones who have self-medicated for a medical condition that doesn’t exist. Or, patients who self-diagnose on the internet, allowing medical conditions to worsen as they were not properly assessed and treated.
Don’t GPs use Google?
It’s true that the internet is the source of important research data and the latest thinking on medical conditions and their causes. Indeed, as part of their continuous professional development, the cutting-edge team at Oval Medical Centre regularly do online research.
This can even include searching for insights on ambiguous or hard to qualify symptoms.
However, the big difference is that many years of education, training, and experience are involved in the process. Our team know the terminology and sources that provide verified and reliable information!
Is self-diagnosis dangerous?
As mentioned above, using Google instead of seeing your Doctor is often a bad idea. However, that’s not to say your instincts, opinions and concerns are ignored by the private GPs at our clinic. Your views matter!
Next step to diagnosing what ails you
Google is not capable of taking your full medical history, physically assessing your health issues or drawing on years of professional training. We take the time to listen to what you think, but then we make a professional diagnosis based on facts, not generalisations.
Please contact us for an appointment, rather than relying on ‘Dr Google’!