courier-journal.com > Indiana View 7 days > Su M Tu W Th F Sa Adv. search >
Monday, October 17, 2005
It's a tangled Web when patients research illness Internet diagnoses challenge doctors
By Shari Rudavsky The Indianapolis Star
CARMEL, Ind. -- The patient walked into Dr. Matthew Nelson's office in Hamilton County, announced that he had looked up his symptoms online, determined that he had Lyme disease and demanded specific antibiotics to treat the malady.
Nelson could only sigh. He's all too familiar with patients who go online to self-diagnose.
"In the past, we actually looked at your symptoms and tried to diagnose you," said Nelson, an internist and pediatrician at Riverview Hospital in Noblesville with a practice in Carmel. "Now I have to de-diagnose the patient and say, 'These are probably the reasons you don't have this.' "
With more people turning to Dr. Internet, experts urge caution. Although many sites offer sound information, just as many sell a product, promote a controversial view of an issue, or provide outdated or inaccurate information.
Still, that doesn't stop people from looking.
A study published this year found that 41 percent of 2,007 people interviewed in a telephone survey -- and 56 percent of those who used the Internet -- had searched for health or medical information in the past year.
Seventy percent of those surfers asked about a specific problem, according to the study, which appeared in August in the International Journal of Medical Informatics.
Since suffering a heart attack last January and discovering that she has diabetes, Mary Margaret Wisner of Indianapolis goes online often to learn about her conditions.
Some days, Wisner, 57, visits Irvington Internet, a cafe her son co-owns, to search for tips on what to eat or alternative products to take, information her doctors have not given her.
Still, she always checks with her doctor or pharmacist.
"I don't just take it as the gospel truth, but I don't do that with the doctor either," she said. "I wouldn't know anything if it were up to my doctors; 95 percent of what I know as to how to take care of myself, I learned from the Internet."
Physicians, however, need not worry about the Internet supplanting their expertise, the study found. Of those who looked for health information on the Internet, 55 percent contacted their physician afterward.
"Health-care information online seems to be an adjunct to health care; people are using it as one tool among many," said Michele Ybarra, an author of the study and president of Internet Solutions for Kids, a nonprofit group in Irvine, Calif.
People between the ages of 40 and 60 relied on the Web the most as a health-information resource.
Patients go online to check out a drug's side effects, to learn more about a condition they already have, to find others who share their disease or to try to diagnose their own malady.
So does the Internet make a doctor's job harder or easier?
"I think it does both," said Dr. Lisa Richter of Speedway Family Physicians, a Westview Hospital clinic. "It definitely gives patients another avenue, but sometimes it makes them too aware of things."
Lay people have always been able to go beyond what their doctors have told them in the search for more medical information, checking out books or journals aimed at professionals. The Internet has made the practice both easier and -- with its plethora of Web sites -- much more complicated.
"It takes a lot more work to wade through the information to sort out the good from bad," said Dr. Michael Weiner, a scientist with the Indiana University Center for Aging Research and the Regenstrief Institute. "We know most Americans have access to health information. Whether they're good at sorting it out remains to be seen."
That's why some professionals, such as Dr. Matthew Surburg, have taken matters into their own hands. Surburg, of Hancock Family Practice in Greenfield, hands patients a form letter advising them how best to use the Internet to answer medical questions.
Some sites do a better job of helping the viewer do that than others, said Dr. Stephen Barrett, a retired psychiatrist in Allentown, Pa., who operates www.quackwatch.org. He recommends sites that offer filtered information rather than just presenting a study's results.
"What you ought to try to do is go to sites that fit everything together," he said.
Real-life physicians have another advantage over their cyber versions, Surburg said.
"Even a reliable site still doesn't take the place of a physician's input because the Web site can't examine you and integrate everything into one picture," he said.
^^
-------------------- There is no wealth but life. -John Ruskin
All truth goes through 3 stages: first it is ridiculed: then it is violently opposed: finally it is accepted as self evident. - Schopenhauer Posts: 5639 | From Aptos CA USA | Registered: Apr 2005
| IP: Logged |
Ann-OH
Frequent Contributor (5K+ posts)
Member # 2020
posted
Let Quackwatch be our guide????? Can't think of worse advice!
posted
I checked out Quackwatch... is it a site for essays written by quacks, or what?
The author of the article on Lyme Disease had been FIRED from his position as the National Institutes of Health's program officer for Lyme disease because of his behavior and beliefs about Lyme Disease and it's sufferers.
The author also has accepted a salary for a position he doesn't perform, and didn't educate himself on the requirements for said job. According to the author, he struggles to fill his eight-hour workdays by reading, exercising and writing fiction.
Well, Dr... that was a good piece of fiction you wrote about Lyme Disease... but please label it as such next time!
Posts: 37 | From Jamestown, NY | Registered: Oct 2005
| IP: Logged |
Ann-OH
Frequent Contributor (5K+ posts)
Member # 2020
posted
Just got a press release about a case Quackwatch quack Barrett lost recently. He has been a very vicious and dangerous critic of so many things. This time he didn't like what someone wrote about him. And he lost his suit.
I will post the article in another message. Ann- OH
Ann-OH
Frequent Contributor (5K+ posts)
Member # 2020
posted
Here's the letter to the editor I sent to several papers which published this article.
Ann - OH
To the Editor: In her Oct. 16 article," `Dr. Internet' exasperating to MDs," Shari Rudavsky quotes the operator of "Quackwatch," as an authority on reliance on the internet for good health information. [quote] "Some sites do a better job of helping the viewer do that than others, notes Dr. Stephen Barrett, a retired psychiatrist in Allentown, Pa., who operates the site quackwatch.org. " [end quote]
This man is a very unreliable resource as can be seen from his testimony at a recent failed court case in his home town.
[quote] At trial, under a heated cross-examination by Negrete, Barrett conceded that he was not a Medical Board Certified psychiatrist because he had failed the certification exam.
This was a major revelation since Barrett had provided supposed expert testimony as a psychiatrist and had testified in numerous court cases. Barrett also had said that he was a legal expert even though he had no formal legal training.
The most damming testimony before the jury, under the intense cross-examination by Negrete, was that Barrett had filed similar defamation lawsuits against almost 40 people across the country within the past few years and had not won one single one at trial.
During the course of his examination, Barrett also had to concede his ties to the AMA, Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Food & Drug Administration (FDA). [end quote]
I hope people don't depend on this fraudulent authority. He is notorious for his faulty information on Lyme disease on his website. Looks like the Quackwatch guy should look in the mirror first!
P R E S S R E L E A S E FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Date: October 13, 2005 Location: Allentown, Pennsylvania
Court Case: Stephen Barrett, M.D. vs. Tedd Koren, D.C. and Koren Publications, Inc. Court of Common Pleas of Lehigh County for the State of Pennsylvania Court Case No.: 2002-C-1837
[The trial started on Monday, October 10, 2005 and ended on October 13, 2005 ]
Contact: Carlos F. Negrete LAW OFFICES OF CARLOS F. NEGRETE San Juan Capistrano, CA 92675 Phone: 949.493.8115 Fax: 949.493.8170 email: [email protected]
CaliforniaLyme
Frequent Contributor (5K+ posts)
Member # 7136
posted
Someone sent me this- thank you someone*)!*)!
************
I tried to contact the different newspapers who published this article (seen this 2 other times w/different titles) but was having problems with either getting their email address or figuring out which paper to send the email to.
So, I did a little research and found the writer's email address:
Might be worth posting this on Lymenet. This way everyone can contact this woman personally vs a newspaper who may not even read (or care) the email others send. And a few honest emails might make her persue an article on Lyme disease.
-------------------- There is no wealth but life. -John Ruskin
All truth goes through 3 stages: first it is ridiculed: then it is violently opposed: finally it is accepted as self evident. - Schopenhauer Posts: 5639 | From Aptos CA USA | Registered: Apr 2005
| IP: Logged |
Ann-OH
Frequent Contributor (5K+ posts)
Member # 2020
posted
Whoops! I made an error in my letter to the editor. I always think of the Lyme Disease Association as "LDA". So I included the wrong website: I should have sent www.lymediseaseassociation.org.
Thanks for the message about this and for your kind words, Cheryl!
The Lyme Disease Network is a non-profit organization funded by individual donations. If you would like to support the Network and the LymeNet system of Web services, please send your donations to:
The
Lyme Disease Network of New Jersey 907 Pebble Creek Court,
Pennington,
NJ08534USA http://www.lymenet.org/
UBBFriend: Email this page to someone!
Printer-friendly view of this topic