We use the internet for just about everything. The internet has replaced malls (we can shop online), banks (we can manage our money online), and even schools (we can earn a college degree online).
Some people are even using the internet to replace doctors. ‘Cyberchondria’ is the term used to describe an increase in online health concerns. Cyberchondria has a couple of different ‘strands’, if you will. Some Cyberchondriacs may enter their symptoms into a search engine and arrive at a self diagnosis based on the search results. Because everything on the internet is reliable and specified information, the cyberchondriac becomes convinced that he has whatever ailment his search engine produced and goes to his doctor demanding testing or treatment.
For example, a cyberchondriac may conduct a search for ‘vomiting’. He is led to a MayoClinic, Wikipedia, or WedMd site that lists ‘vomiting’ as a symptom of parasitic infection. Thus, he determines that he is indeed the host of a stomach inhabiting parasite and should high-tail it to the local doctor’s office and demand a prescription to save his own life. Crisis averted.
Another form of cyberchondriacism may arise after one reads an article about brain tumors. After reading said article, the cyberchondriac starts to have headaches. Blurred vision. Slurred speech. The cyberchondriac pays a visit to the local doctor, again, and declares that in addition to a stomach parasite, he now has a brain tumor.
Cyberchondriacs have become the proverbial pebble in the shoes of doctors everywhere. A patient that is convinced he has a certain illness is hard to treat. Doctors are challenged to distinguish the symptoms that are absolute, from the symptoms that are created by the patient’s increasing anxiety. In some instances, patients will demand diagnostic testing, even after the doctor deems it completely unwarranted. Symptoms may be present, but wouldn’t it make sense to trust someone who has completed years of medical school over search engines that allow medical sites to bid on symptom targeted key words?
I think I will continue to let my doctor deliver a diagnosis. My health insurance plan does not list Dr. Google as an in-network provider.
Contributed by Laine Beyerl
