Web vs M.D.

As a young-ish adult, I take many things for granted: my ample head of hair, my ability to troubleshoot computer problems without calling a 1-800 number, and Sam Waterston returning for yet another season on Law & Order. One day, my hair will be gone, computers will be incomprehensible quantum machines, and Sam Waterston will be playing a 110-year-old district attorney on Law & Order. The one thing I shouldn't be taking for granted any more is my health, and this was never made clearer to me than a year ago, when I began treatment for a chronic pain problem.

Before last year, I hadn't seen a real doctor in about eight years. Once, in college, I went to the campus health center to get some prescriptions for a nasty case of the flu. The medical professional who treated me was the sweetest lady ever; she explained everything she did before she did it, smiled brightly the whole time, and gave me a printout from a web site that listed all the things I should be doing to feel better. "You're the nicest doctor I've ever had," I told her as I was leaving. "That's because I'm not a doctor," she said. "I'm a nurse-practitioner."

I had to go home and Google that one.

How seriously should you take your doctor's advice versus the advice you find on a web site? When my condition developed last year, the first thing I did was to do some research online. After several hours of reading and cross-referencing various web sites, I concluded that I had a pinched nerve. This shallow self-diagnosis informed all my interactions with actual doctors later. I told my general practitioner that I thought I had a pinched nerve. He referred me to a neurologist who then sent me to get a battery of tests over several months. The neurologist concluded that I did indeed have a pinched nerve, and the solution would be to undergo physical therapy for three months.

But a funny thing happened when I went for my first therapy session. My physical therapist, who asked me a few simple questions and made me do some stretches, determined within minutes that I didn't have a pinched nerve after all -- I had, in fact, a condition called bursitis. I'd heard of bursitis before, in professional sports injury reports in the news, but it had never occurred to me that I might have it. But the more research I did, the more I think my physical therapist is right.

Sometimes doctors are right, and sometimes they are wrong. Sometimes, the Internet can help, and sometimes, it can't. I wish I knew the lesson here, but I don't. For every doctor who thinks it's a bad idea for a patient to use the Internet as medical resource, there's another who disagrees.

Point: When the Patient is a Googler [Time Magazine]
Counterpoint: Is There a Doctor in the Mouse? [Salon]