10 votes

“Imagine if doctors relied on Google as much as programmers do”

2 comments

  1. [2]
    whbboyd
    Link
    Short and sweet. I need to take a potshot at the title, though, because it makes it very clear the author doesn't interact with physicians other than as a patient much: they do. And yes, they...

    Short and sweet. I need to take a potshot at the title, though, because it makes it very clear the author doesn't interact with physicians other than as a patient much: they do. And yes, they literally use google.com (and look up videos of procedures on youtube), though of course proprietary databases and services are also an important part of most physicians' practice.

    Like programmers, doctors know their own jargon and specific terminology to cut quickly through the chaff of general-interest content to get to information which is targeted to and useful for them when using general-purpose search engines. This is, essentially, the underlying reason why laypeople referring to "Doctor Google" (or "Helpdesk Tech Google") tends to go very, very poorly, while professionals using the same information sources are much more likely to extract useful information.

    17 votes
    1. skybrian
      Link Parent
      There are scare quotes in the original title, which I think makes it clearer that it’s something they are reacting to. (I added them here.)

      There are scare quotes in the original title, which I think makes it clearer that it’s something they are reacting to. (I added them here.)

      4 votes