Google Used To Diagnose Disease

dptalia writes "About 20% of all diseases are misdiagnosed, a percentage that has remained steady since the 1930s. However, scientists have discovered that by inputting the key symptoms into Google they can get the correct diagnosis about 58% of the time. For rare and unusual diseases, this provides doctors the information they need to get a correct cure. Of course, Google is only as good as its knowledge base, and its users, so this isn't a cure for everything."

Comments

Re:20% error compared to 42% error of Google?

[snarkh]

Don't get too excited about these numbers. The whole study is based on 26 examples.

Re:Since we're using famous websites

[Anonymous Coward]

It's called http://pubmed.com/ and I use it all the time in exactly the same way. Google is my second choice. You can't practice medicine without internet access now.

ASO, MD
Neurology