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The Other Exam Room: When Doctors 'Google' Their Patients

Posted by Soulskill on from the like-dr.-house-but-lazier dept.

theodp writes "Writing in the NY Times, Dr. Haider Javed Warraich shares a dirty little medical secret: doctors do 'Google' their patients, and the practice is likely to only become more common. And while he personally feels the practice should be restricted to situations where there's a genuine safety issue, an anecdote Warraich shares illustrates how patient search could provide insight into what otherwise might be unsolved mysteries — or lead to a snap misdiagnosis: 'I was once taking care of a frail, older patient who came to the hospital feeling very short of breath. It wasn't immediately clear why, but her breathing was getting worse. To look for accidental ingestions, I sent for a drug screen and, to my great surprise, it came back positive for cocaine. It didn't make sense to me, given her age and the person lying before me, and I was concerned she had been the victim of some sort of abuse. She told me she had no idea why there was cocaine in her system. When I walked out of the room, a nurse called me over to her computer. There, on MugShots.com, was a younger version of my patient's face, with details about how she had been detained for cocaine possession more than three decades earlier. I looked away from the screen, feeling like I had violated my patient's privacy. I resumed our medical exam, without bringing up the finding on the Internet, and her subsequent hospital course was uneventful.'"

10 of 231 comments (clear)

  1. Go Ahead, Google Me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I don't care if my doctor Google's me. They'll have to weed through millions of results for Anonymous Coward.

    1. Re:Go Ahead, Google Me by telchine · · Score: 5, Funny

      I don't care if my doctor Google's me. They'll have to weed through millions of results for Anonymous Coward.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissociative_identity_disorder

  2. As House Says by Cornwallis · · Score: 5, Funny

    "Everybody lies."

  3. So.... by MitchDev · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ... adoctor will fondle and touch and examine your most intimate body parts, yet they shouldn't look at publicly available information? STUPID.

    Yes, they shouldn't jump to conclusions based on what they find, but otherwise, fair game.

    1. Re:So.... by Vitriol+Angst · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I feel more confident in a Doctor having more information than a for-profit insurance company -- which already KNOWS MORE than the doctor in many cases.

      --
      >>"ad space available -- low rates!!!"
    2. Re:So.... by gstoddart · · Score: 5, Interesting

      ... adoctor will fondle and touch and examine your most intimate body parts, yet they shouldn't look at publicly available information? STUPID.

      Except when doctors look at this publicly available information, the fact that they looked at it also becomes information which, while not publicly available, is still available to Google and, by extension, the government. Because the search engine knows who did the search (possibly exactly who if you're logged in) and where it came from.

      The simple act of the search allows someone to say "this doctor's office looked for this person, and they also looked at this information". You don't think big data can't then determine that "this person has that condition and is being treated by that doctor"?

      And then you've violated HIPAA laws and your obligation to patient confidentiality.

      Unless you can prove no 3rd party could glean information from you doing that search (and I assure you, the doctors can't), you pretty much have to assume that someone actually could.

      Which means the default position here has to be "no, you can't do that". Because it has more potential to cause harm than people realize.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
  4. Re:It's the sign of our times by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    You know what a good thing is? Paragraphs, dude. Paragraphs.

  5. "feeling like I had violated my patient's privacy" by east+coast · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Why would he feel that way?

    To me, if a doctor can find something about a patient without going to crazy lengths to do it then he shouldn't feel bad about it. It would be like me telling my doctor I've given up smoking and he sees me smoking in front of my local Starbucks a month later. On my next visit should he really ignore that I'm smoking again or should he ask about it or come outright and say "I caught you in the act."

    Granted, I'm an adult and I can decide but for medical guidance to be accurate and worthwhile you have to be honest with your doctor and his pointing out the embarrassing truth might be what it takes to get a patient to straighten up and fly right.

    --
    Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
  6. Re:What surprises me is that... by sandytaru · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I thought the implication was that she lied about having no idea how coke was in her system because she was still an addict and still taking it?

    --
    Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
  7. Re:Patients Lie by demonlapin · · Score: 5, Interesting

    MD here. They lie. They lie all the time. Usually not all that important, sometimes it is. We almost always know anyway.