‘A HEARTBEAT MOMENT’: QUALITATIVE STUDY OF GP VIEWS OF PATIENTS BRINGING HEALTH INFORMATION FROM THE INTERNET TO A CONSULTATION

You know that moment, don’t you? The patient comes in, sits down, and utters the phrase ‘I looked it up on the internet, and I think . . .’. I try to use this to my advantage, and work with the patient to explore their ideas. Some of the diagnoses are fanciful or obscure, but occasionally we are helped by this.

A paper I read a few years ago said that diagnosing by putting symptoms into Google has quite a decent success rate, and we should adapt to these new technologies. So it was good to read the paper from London that analysed this phenomenon. It helps balance some of the palpable nonsense that gets printed (and even taught) about placebo ‘therapies’ like reflexology.

Each article is graded from 1–5

IMPORTANCE: ★ (very marginal) to ★★★★★ (essential reading)

EASE OF READING: ☻ (impenetrable) to ☻☻☻☻☻ (very clear)