Doctors Seeing a Rise In "Google-itis"

[wraggster]

It's one of the fastest-growing health issues that doctors now face: "Google-itis." Everyone from concerned mothers to businessmen on their lunch break are typing in symptoms and coming up with rare diseases or just plain wrong information. Many doctors are bringing computers into examination rooms now so they can search along with patients to alleviate their fears. "I'm not looking for a relationship where the patient accepts my word as the gospel truth," says Dr. James Valek. "I just feel the Internet brings so much misinformation to the (exam) room that we have to fight through all that before we can get to the problem at hand."

http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1655038

[VampDude]

There are many cases of "Oh my god, I'm dying... Google told me." since people have been trying to quickly diagnose their problems without seeing a professionally qualified doctor.