Editorial: Dot-com diagnosis

Monday, Nov. 13, 2006 | 7:36 a.m.

Feeling ill? Consult Dr. Google.

That's what your doctor may be doing.

After noting that - surprise, surprise - people use Google to try to diagnose themselves, two Australian physicians figured the Web search engine might be useful to doctors.

For a study published online Friday by the British Medical Journal, they took 26 cases from the New England Journal of Medicine, typed some specific symptoms into Google and pressed the button. The doctors report that Google found the correct answer in more than half of the cases, including some difficult and rare answers.

They conclude that given that Google can search billions of articles on the Internet, the site far outreaches any online medical search and figures that in difficult cases it is "often useful to 'google for a diagnosis.' "

While it sounds strange to have a doctor googling just as we would, we're comforted that in a world exploding with information, doctors are being encouraged to look wide for answers, whether on Google or someplace else.

The problem for the patient, of course, is that what you find on the Internet may be incorrect and unnecessarily frightening, which is why you should always check with a doctor - who can check with Google.

Still, it makes us wonder: What's next, surgery on YouTube?