Ross Sheil, Staff Reporter

Google Jamaica webpage. - Andrew Smith/Photography Editor

DOCTORS IN search of diagnosis could turn to the Internet search engine Google for help, according to research published in the British Medical Journal.

Two doctors from Brisbane, Australia, found that entering a patient's symptoms into Google results in a correct diagnosis in 58 per cent of cases.

In their conclusions, Princess Alexandra Hospital doctors Hangwi Tang and Jennifer Hwee Kwoon Ng said that doctors should take advantage of available Internet connections in clinics and hospitals.

"Web-based search engines such as Google are becoming the latest tools in clinical medicine and doctors in training need to become more proficient in their use," they recommended.

However, Dr. Winston Davidson, public health specialist and past president of the Medical Associa-tion of Jamaica (MAJ), warned persons not to use Google as an alternative to professional medical attention. He cautioned doctors using the Internet to limit themselves to trusted medical sources.

He said that he has had experience of patients coming to him having received incorrect information from Internet searches.

Not for everything

"Getting information about a particular diagnosis may identify symptoms but what about complications? For instance, if you see an abscess on your skin together with swelling and pain and then you find a series of things on Google and identify it as one. But guess what? That abscess might be from diabetes and you might only find out later on!" he said.

He added that he had never used Google to diagnosis a patient.

The two Australian doctors said they became interested in the medical potential of Google when one of them (Dr. Tang) was unable to diagnose a 16-year-old patient. However, the father of the teenager, claiming to have used Google, was able to give the doctor the correct diagnosis.

The doctors then took 26 cases published over a year in the New England Journal of Medicine. They then entered three to five words from the cases into Google and selected the most likely diagnosis from the first 30 search results.

ross.sheil@gleanerjm.com