Look, I’m not keen on casting aspersions, but this guy is a massive knobhead. Dr Google is single-handedly spreading panic amongst the citizens of the world. In fact, here in the U.K. I think he might be partly to blame for the sharp increase in NHS referrals.
Free at the point of access? Maybe it should start being free at-the-point-you-can-prove-you-didn’t-search-this-problem-online access.
I’m making the joke, but the situation is far from jovial. A bit of my own online research uncovered some facts on this issue.
According to a survey in the USA of 2,140 citizens who needed help to find the source of their medical concerns, 65% went to Dr Google. Furthermore, of those 65%, around 30% were misdiagnosed by this non-governed hack quack.
This doesn’t take into account any multiple diagnosis, unnecessary stress and admin, and the ripple effect of undiagnosed beliefs.
Why do we do it? On the whole this problem seems to boil down to 2 things – timing and availability. Timing, because many people are doing these searches in the twilight hours when other, more legitimate options aren’t available, and availability because most of us are struggling to get appropriate NHS appointments, even at primary care level.
But I think we’re creating a bit of a catch 22 situation. People are misdiagnosed online and impact the availability of services by asking for referrals that might not be necessary, leading to even less availability of appointments and even more people needing a consultation with Dr Google and co.
This set of circumstances was on my mind very recently. Problems accessing a GP appointment because of staff shortages left me with symptoms I was unsure about and couldn’t check. Now, I’ve been an advocate for leaving any search engine GPs well alone for years – It’s never felt like a safe solution for me. But in the absence of any other options I found myself tapping away at my keyboard while praying the search engine wasn’t about to return the big C. It didn’t, but it did throw back a confusing mess of other options and now I find myself even more anxious than when I started and without an appointment to discuss any of it.
I’ll be in the same call queue as hundreds of my neighbours at 8am on Tuesday, which is where I should have been last week.
Social isolation probably feeds the issue too, after all, our problems are supposed to be halved when we share them. Maybe Dr G just isn’t the right ‘person’ to share with.
So I wondered what the solution is. While the NHS isn’t perfect, even after my personal experiences I still believe it is by far the best place to get medical help. The system is fucked, the setup needs a complete overhaul, but the people within it are still better informed, better trained, and far more empathetic than any search engine.
The 111 service is available 24/7, but I can hear you sighing at the thought of over an hour listening to their defunct hold music. So, did you know they have an online referral service too? Their online system operates a triage questionnaire about your symptoms and arranges an appropriate referral based on your responses. It covers more than just coughs and colds too. Mental, physical and dental questions can go there (but obviously call 999 straight away in an emergency). You could get a call back from a GP, a nurse or the contact details for a dentist for example. In all cases this has to be better way of spending time online than consulting with anything AI.
You can visit the online NHS 111 service here
Alternatively, I know that holding for your GP every morning is stressful, but nothing is more stressful than an illness that becomes long-term when it could have been managed months ago. Set an alarm, be first in line, join me on Tuesday morning listening to awful tunes, and while you’re holding play Candy Crush or something!
The picture
This post needed something positive, so I was looking for inspiration using a rainbow of colours that promotes hope.
What better than crystals? I love this colour palette and I love the idea of alternative healing, so maybe crystals should be something I try?! At least they won’t tell me something I wasn’t expecting that could turn out to be completely wrong.
Thanks for reading 💜
Creative Steph 