How Do Doctors Use Google - Blogosphere Impact

Image Hosted by ImageShack.usIt was very interesting to see the blogosphere activity after several medical bloggers (including me) wrote about how they use Google for medical searches.

As of today, "how doctors use Google" returns 255 websites linking to the article. The story was reported by the search industry watchdogs (Google Blogoscoped, SearchEngineWatch, and SearchEngineLowdown), then it was picked up by medical librarians, and finally by pretty much everybody who was following the field.

Obviously, there was a lot of interest and even a bit of surprise about doctors finding Google results helpful. If you are a patient, you have to face it, your doctor is using Google just like you (or if not yet, will start using it soon). The difference is that the doctors can sort out the false information really fast by checking the source. Most physicians do not even bother to read the stories from commercial websites ending with ".com" URL. The high-quality medical information comes from reputable websites, like NEJM, eMedicine, AFP, BMJ, Cleveland Clinic, and university and government websites (".edu" and ".gov").

As much as I like blogs, nobody should make medical decisions based on a website ending with "" or "". It is just because anybody can start a blog.

Google is becoming the world's largest library, and just like a library, you can find anything in it. Actually, you know better than me, than the quality of the web information is polluted by spammers and x-rated websites but this is the price that we have to pay for the easy and free access to all that data.

If you are patient, do not worry too much, you can be certain that your doctor is putting your health first. He or she will rely on quality sources like Pubmed, UpToDate and others (some of them accessible through Google) for the foreseeable future. The physician-patient relationship is based on trust and no sensible physician would jeopardize that.

Update 3/28/2007:


More people consult Google over health - Times Online
How do I use Google? - Kevin MD
Some Great Google Tips - California Medicine Man
How Doctors Use Google
Image source:


  1. And in case you didn't notice, you and your collagues weblogpostings are also linked on Dutch weblogs, like, www.dutchcowboys and my own

  2. Thank you Martijn,

    I did notice that a few blogs from Netherlands link to us but unfortunately I cannot read in Dutch, and Google Translator does not have a Dutch-to-English option yet...:-)

    Thanks once again.

  3. The sad thing is, many of the .edu sites are pretty darn lame.

  4. I second Greg P.

    I'm not a physician, but the fact that doctors only rely on credentialed info isn't a huge confidence booster. I mean I can do that too.

    Actually, I've never been terribly impressed by most of the people I knew who went to medical school. The physicists were so much smarter.

    I'm not sure that what passes for evidence in the medical literature is really compelling anyway.

  5. I am writing an article for a physician's magazine on doctors using Google for diagnosis.
    Would anyone want to comment for the article?


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