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Trust your doctor, not Wikipedia?

Posted on 13th June 2014

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I find this story rather disingenuous.

Whilst I agree that there is a lot of rubbish (propaganda, lies, rantings and badly researched material) on the Internet, Wikipedia is one of the better sources of data. Most of the entries are written and/or reviewed by experts in their field, whether medical, scientific or technical. If there are errors, they tend to be corrected reasonably quickly.

My own experience of doctors is that their knowledge is often not up to date with the latest medical research; in fact, quite often, more out of date than what I find on Wikipedia. Not so long ago, doctors at one of the leading hospitals in Munich wanted to perform two separate surgical procedure on me that not only did not address my medical issues, but one of them was based on unsound research (and has since been withdrawn).

Given the lack of expertise in the medical profession, thank goodness for Wikipedia and other sources on the web.

Of course, some common sense should be applied. The Internet should be used as one source of information, in combination with that from your doctors, but the days when we could blindly accept our doctors' advice are over.

My attitude to this is simple. I am not simply a patient; I am the customer, and should be treated as such. My doctor is not is charge of my health and its treatment; I am. When I get contradictory information about my health, I need to be convinced by my doctor (or he needs to be convinced by me). If my doctor can't work in this way, I will find one who can.