Internet and Patient Awareness

Internet is the richest source of information and the most vast as well in the existing world. There is almost no word or phrase that is not found in the Search. People have become well informed of their state of health and of course their disease.

There are plenty of quality health websites with informations made as simple as that, anyone can read and understand. Some of the best I can remember are wrongdiagnosis.com, righthealth.com,webmd.com,mayoclinic.com,everydayhealth.com etc. People can go around these website and surf their symptoms and find out the disease through ” Symptom Checker” tool, Calculate their BMI ” BMI tool” ( Which even medchrome.com has provided on the left sidebar), Calculate calories burnt with each exercise. You can take quizes that determine your Risk factors for various disease . Most importantly there are places where you can consult a real Doctor online addressing him your problem. There are even andoid, iphone health applications available.

Coming to the disease part. Like in the Western countries where people go through internet and read about their problems, people in South asian continent are also no longer behind. They are well informed and are well conscious of their health state, diseases they have and even likely diagnosis and treatment. This way the doctors have to be more competitive and updated to satisfy the patients.

With the advent of health information through the internet, sometimes people get mislead. Self diagnosis your disease or suspecting a lethal disease, leads to unnecessary stress at times. People usually are too much worried about Cancer, STIs comparing thier few symptoms online. Most importantly, ” Never take Unprescribed drugs available in the net through prescription websites, Always consult your doctor” because every drug will have a side-effect and that may be really hazardous specially in children and pregnancy.

So, get the best out of the net, use it for right reason. Reading health and medical websites is excellent way to be health-disease conscious but never completely rely on the internet as there are diseases that is even difficult for Doctors to diagnosis without having couple of investigations done. Use the informations in supplement  to doctors advice not as an alternative.

And for Doctors, it has become more challenging and competitive world, stay updated and take regular CMEs , and respect your patients knowledge as well.

Article By. Dr. R. Shrestha, Kathmandu