Googling doctors

[MotherBear]

NZ health professionals turn to Google for answers
By JOANNA DAVIS - The Press | Tuesday, 13 February 2007

Canterbury health professionals often use Google to get answers to tricky clinical questions, even though they recognise it is not always authoritative, new research shows.

Canterbury University student Gemma Griffin surveyed 549 health workers, including nurses, doctors, dentists, midwives and physiotherapists, on how they answered clinical questions about patient diagnosis or treatment.

Canterbury District Health Board (CDHB) staff were most likely to consult experts and colleagues, followed by textbooks, internet search engines and library resources. Google was the most popular electronic resource.

Griffin said this did not mean it was the most highly rated.

"Staff most commonly judged information to be authoritative if it was published in a reliable journal, suggesting that while staff frequently use Google, they are cautious about the reliability of information found this way," she said.

More here .

[selchie]

At first I thought your title read giggling doctors. What a letdown.

Using the internet sounds like a good way to research good medical info. Lots of top notch medical sources post online.