Google To Offer Better Medical Advice When You Search Your Symptoms (cnbc.com)

An anonymous reader writes from a report via CNBC: Google said Monday that it will be improving its catalog of searched Googled health symptoms by adding information on related health conditions that have been vetted by the Mayo Clinic and Harvard Medical School. For example, if you type "headache on one side," Google will offer up a list of associated conditions like "migraine," "common cold" or "tension headache." When it comes to general searches like "headache," the company will also give an overview description along with information on self-treatment options or symptoms that warrant a doctor's visit. In Google's official blog post, the company said roughly 1 percent of the searches on Google, which equates to millions of searches, are related to symptoms users are researching. However, search results can be confusing, and result in "unnecessary anxiety and stress," Google said. It plans to use its Knowledge Graph feature, which contains high-quality medical information collected from doctors, to enhance search results.

Comments

filter out pseudoscience

[sg_oneill]

If they can filter out all the pseudoscience waffle (Anti-vax , quantum-foo, etc) it might actually do wonders for peoples scientific literacy, especially at a time when good science can mean life or death.

Re: filter out pseudoscience

[EmeraldBot]

There aren't many people out there who are truly opposed to vaccinations. Please don't misrepresent our beliefs. We simply understand that vaccines have side effects. In adults, vaccines can cause soreness, fever, and nausea. Occasionally there are more serious side effects of vaccines, though these generally are rare in adults. One side effect that can be far more serious is that a person could have an allergic reaction to the vaccine. That can happen with any vaccine, though it's not especially common. Generally speaking, the side effects are either so rare or benign relative to actually getting the illness that the vaccine is worth it. In children, however, sometimes the side effects are different. In particular, some vaccines are strongly linked with causing autism. The mechanisms for this aren't fully understood, but there is a strong link with some vaccines. I don't think most people truly oppose vaccinations, but rather are genuinely concerned about the side effects. And that's also true with medicines, which can sometimes have some very serious side effects. Please don't misrepresent our views as pseudoscience.

You seem to be surprisingly rational for someone holding that view, unusually even, so I'll make an attempt. Skepticism is always warranted a little bit, but it only works properly if you have actual concrete research to back it up. Can you even name the specific vaccine you're talking about? "Strongly linked" implies their was a research study done on it, at least to me. Can you please present that study? If there is one, I certainly don't know of it.

Second off, please remember that your doctors are professionally trained, have years of experience, and from what I understand, it's not that uncommon to have written an actual thesis as one. You are, almost certainly, not even trained at all, much less anywhere near that level, so you should be very skeptical of your own opinion because you are going to have a much narrower base of knowledge. Vaccines do have a chance of allergic reactions and such - but do you know the potential consequences of not getting them? Take the chickenpox one, for example. I'm not aware of allergic reactions to it, since I never needed the vaccine, but if you ignore the vaccine and your kids don't get it when they're young, they're at risk for getting chickenpox later on in life. Chickenpox as a kid is about as dangerous as a cold, but in an adult, it can be lethal if not properly treated, and even when it is it's much harder on your body. You have a 1-in-a-million chance or so with most vaccines of getting a reaction, but your odds of getting chickenpox are not that low at all, especially if you work anywhere near children.

Ultimately, please, ask your doctor. It's fine to be skeptical of something, so ask them why - they will have fully explored this issue, and will be capable of answering any questions you might have. That's, after all, they're job - they're here to help treat you, and they'll be able to explain to you the risks. Feel free to deliberate after them, but given that there is no correlation between vaccines and autism, allergic reactions are extremely rare, and the trace amounts of some chemicals is so small as to be medically insignificant, the very small risks of a vaccine far outweigh the potential risks of catching something like chickenpox or meningitis, for which both death is a possible outcome. Please, for your children's sake, ask your doctor.

Re: filter out pseudoscience

[EmeraldBot]

You put way too much faith in doctors. Just because someone is "professionally trained" or has "years of experience" doesn't mean anything at all. I am very pro-vaccine but I am always amazed at how people think doctors know something special about vaccines just because they went to medical school. They aren't pharmacologists. They just prescribe the stuff.

"They just prescribe stuff" is far more than you or I know. Why the hell isn't everyone a programmer? There can't be much more to it than just logical thinking, after all. Same with architecture - what the hell can there be to designing buildings? I can build one out of legos pretty well, it's just on a bigger scale.

If you're on Slashdot, you're more likely than most to have at least a little technical experience, so I'd like to point you out the person that we all hate, the technically illiterate manager. You know, the one who can't understand why you can't debug a program in 3 hours, why delays can possibly happen, and why the hell they pay you what they do to type on a keyboard all day. What do you do that an outsourced programmer in India can't? That probably offends you, of course you do valuable work, and someone who is on average poorer trained than you is going to output poorer work. After all, not everyone's fit to be a programmer, right?

Then why the hell is it different for doctors?

Re: filter out pseudoscience

[arth1]

I've been misdiagnosed by doctors multiple times. And been scheduled to take expensive tests that were contraindicated, or medication that also was contraindicated. I expect many if not most people just go along.

Internet and libraries have provided help where doctors haven't. And internet and libraries don't have a several months wait to get an appointment, and are never consistently late when you do have one.

For me, the only value doctors have is the ability to prescribe medication and lab tests I can't order myself, and do surgeries I can't do myself.

And they're arrogant, so the trick is to steer and nudge them in the right direction and make them think that they came up with the plans and diagnoses. Much like with mid-level management in general, which I suppose they are.

Otherwise, taking your body to a physician is like taking your short stroke server to a Best Buy "Geek Squad" for service. They know just enough to cause damage to anything out of the ordinary.

vast improvement

[Gravis Zero]

as a beta tester, i can tell you that this is a vast improvement to the old system.

my list of symptoms symptoms: "partially numb to pain, shortness of breath, cannot raise left hand to keyboard"

Before it scared the crap out of me with this line: "you have having heart-attack or stroke. CALL FOR MEDICAL ASSISTANCE IMMEDIATELY"
However, the new system gave me a proper reply: "you have Attention Deficit Disorder, need to exercise more and please stop masterbating before using Google Health" :)

Why Not?

[sudon't]

Why not. It's not like anyone thinks search results are simply searches of an index of what's on the web anymore.

... and still added to your profile.

[Anonymous Coward]

Better advice or not, the medical searches you perform will still be added to the profile of information kept about you by Google.

Any medical related searches should be performed anonymously through some sort of proxy.

Re:... and still added to your profile.

[dlingman]

Better advice or not, the medical searches you perform will still be added to the profile of information kept about you by Google.

And then promptly sold to your insurance company.