The internet and the future of health

The Pew Internet and American Life Project website recently published a report revealing the statistics for current health-topic searches on the internet. The report, entitled "Health Information Online" and written by Susannah Fox, focuses on the increasing popularity of using the internet to access health information. The results of the report are rather indisputable: as the internet becomes integrated into our lives, more poeple are turning to the web to look up health-related topics.

Searches about diets and fitness are gaining popularity, but what caught my attention was that the most popular searches have consistently been those regarding information on specific diseases and medical problems. It seems quite common to look for information on diets and fitness on the internet, just like when someone asks a friend about the same information. However, as more people are turning to the internet to find out about diseases (the practice is the most popular, with 66% of the internet population searching for medical information), I am beginning to question the practicality of researching diseases on the internet. While I have also used the internet to look up information regarding diseases, I also follow up that research with a visit to my physician. Although the internet makes information about diseases available, I know that I'm not an actual doctor. But I wonder if others are doing the same, or are they solely using the internet to diagnose themselves?

While a mother may be able to diagnose her child with the common cold, sometimes, her child may be afflicted with another disease with symptoms similar to a cold. This is a situation where a doctor distinguishes himself from an individual without a medical education; doctors can detect subtle nuances to determine whether a patient is a common, easily curable disease from a rarer disease that may be difficult to cure. In addition, while the internet may eventually replace pharmacists with services that deliver medicine to a person's home, real doctors are the only people that can give a patient a prescription for medicine. The internet cannot prescribe medicine. The trends show that every aspect of health and medicine are becoming integrated into the internet as the years pass. However, the internet doesn't interact with the person using it, and will never be able to diagnose a person as accurately as a doctor.