Abstract
The most dramatic development in medical decision-making technology has been the advent of the Internet. This has had an impact not only on clinicians, but has also become an important resource for patients who often approach their doctors with medical information they have obtained from the Internet. Increasingly, medical students, residents and attending physicians have been using the Internet as a tool for diagnosing and treating disease. Internet-based resources that are available take various forms, including informational websites, online journals and textbooks, and social media. Search engines such as Google have been increasingly used to help in making diagnoses of disease entities. Do these search methods fare better than experienced heuristic methods? In a small study, we examined the comparative role of heuristics versus the 'Google' mode of thinking. Internal medicine residents were asked to "google" key words to come up with a diagnosis. Their results were compared to experienced nephrology faculty and fellows in training using heuristics and no additional help of internet. Overall, with the aid of Google, the novices (internal medicine residents) correctly diagnosed renal diseases less often than the experts (the attendings) but with the same frequency as the intermediates (nephrology fellows). However, in a subgroup analysis of both common diseases and rare diseases, the novices correctly diagnosed renal diseases less often than the experts but more often than the intermediates in each analysis. The novices correctly diagnosed renal diseases with the same frequency as nephrology fellows in training.
Highlights
In medical problem solving and decision-making, experts often use heuristics, or methods of problem solving for which no formula exists, but are instead based on informal methods or experience[1]
While invaluable in helping the experienced clinician arrive at a diagnosis faster, the use of heuristics is associated with biases inherent in efficient decision making and, can lead to specific patterns of error[2]
We reviewed and analyzed the use of Google as a diagnostic tool in renal diseases and compared it to the experience of fellows and attending staff
Summary
In medical problem solving and decision-making, experts often use heuristics, or methods of problem solving for which no formula exists, but are instead based on informal methods or experience[1]. “Googling” a clinical question may be especially useful in the case of rare or syndromic diseases, but may be less likely to be useful in diagnosing more common diseases To assess this possibility, we reviewed and analyzed the use of Google as a diagnostic tool in renal diseases and compared it to the experience of fellows and attending staff. With the aid of Google, the novices (internal medicine residents) correctly diagnosed renal diseases less often than the experts (nephrology attendings) (72.2% vs 84.7%, p
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
