Hey Doc, I Googled And Got Something Else

Want to become a doctor? Or already a practicing clinician? Well, be prepared to face a flurry of questions from your patients, relevant or irrelevant. While some patients get satisfied testing your basic clinical knowledge, some have the quench to get you reminded of your final professional viva voce.

No one is at fault, it is the sociological development.

With the popularization of search engines and availability of medical data related websites, patients (and the population in general) have started feeding their symptoms & signs to the search bar and preserving the results to test your skills.

Don’t gouge your brains; patients are willing to be elucidated. Though I understand, human body is a cathedral of complexities. No longer acceptance of the superficial interpretation of the disease and its management, you will have to justify why the war broke out, what weapons would be used and when will the peace be restored. While to some of us, it might feel as a redundant infringement of our contented domains, to some it gives a thrill.

It also provides uncalled for and unintentional witty outbursts sometimes, in otherwise mind-numbing routine of clinicians. And the humor is shared by patient as well. It’s the part of learning process. As clinicians, we should respect our patient’s smallest of the queries and in turn, it lies on the patient’s perspective to refrain from making a final verdict on a doctor’s skills by giving the contents of the medical website, he browsed the night before, a preference. Medical Science is a perplexed field and only a trained doctor knows its versatility and applications. There is an army of atypical syndromes, atypical clinical presentations, atypical infections these days and medical websites or pre-coded software programs are unlikely to take their significance in fair account.

I feel good in attending to patients’ smallest and bizarre-at-the-best queries, as to infuse accurate understanding is imparting practical education and if you have been chosen to treat someone’s health issues, why not do it with an élan and in a flawless way with the broadest smile?