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A patient’s guide to the Internet

Looking for health information online? Here’s how to separate the best from the rest.

I have a son in medical school. On his study desk are a lamp, a laptop computer, a wireless router, a PalmPilot and a cellphone. The only thing we have in common from my own medical-school days? The lamp.

The advent of electronic learning has created an environment where medical textbooks have been rendered redundant. The fact the Internet has replaced texts and libraries represents a great challenge to anyone interested in medical issues. Every drug, disease and treatment can be found at the mere click of a mouse.

There’s only one problem: the Web contains anything anyone wants to put on it – the true, the false and the fanciful – there’s no censorship and no fact-checking.

The Internet is, however, superb for allowing patients and families with rare conditions to find support groups and practical information using community forums or listservs (email mailing lists). If you have multiple sclerosis, you can look in the phonebook and easily find a support group, but symptoms of the illness may sometimes make it hard to get out to meetings. And with a rare disease (such as Apert’s syndrome), the only place to find people with similar issues might be via the Net. But how do you navigate the options? Stick to websites that are government-run or backed by an authoritative medical association or try not-for-profit sites (always check the “about us” section if you’re unsure).

Websites that have more advertising than content or that offer pay-by-the-minute doctor consultations should raise a red flag. Another issue is the proliferation of self-serving sites. In the past if you typed “American Hart Association” instead of “American Heart Association,” the first website that appeared was actually owned and operated by a company that sold medical equipment and recommended therapies that involved their products.

Physicians, such as myself, regard this easy access to information as a double-edged sword. They prefer that patients be informed about their conditions but they know that too much information, or the wrong information, can give rise to unnecessary anxiety. (Just try to find a family doctor who hasn’t fielded a midnight phone call from a patient panicked by an Internet self diagnosis!) The Internet certainly plays an important role in the medical community, but if it makes you feel unwell, my professional advice is this: Take a couple of aspirins and call your doctor in the morning.

Written by: Dr. Murray Waldman, a Toronto physician for more than 30 years, has been a family and emergency doctor, coroner, administrator and a rehabilitation physician, and is a columnist for the Toronto Star.

Re-printed from Investors Group Review magazine, June 2008

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