Google Stack

Post date: Jan 19, 2011 7:46:00 PM

Joining the medical lexicon is a new phrase called Google Stack which represents the output from Googling one's symptoms.

A Time Magazine Googling Symptoms Helps Patients and Doctors column by an MD - Zachary Meisl (19Jan2011) is getting a lot of attention. However, Googling symptoms has been a topic for quite some time. The blog All Scrubbed Up had a post over four years ago titled "A Medical view on "Googling your symptoms"... This is the earliest reference that I found though I admit it was not an exhaustive Google search.

I'm guilty of it myself even playing back sound clips of my son's cough thinking it was whooping cough. The Time article seems to think its a good thing. At least the patient is trying to be involved in their own care. Maybe this leads to greater medication adherence. There is also a downside of which I've had personal experience but I won't go there.

Going to self-diagnosis is a slippery slope but patients are Googling so maybe we should help them. Perhaps Google can give MD's special IDs that allow them to tag reliable sites - a folksonomy of worthwhile medical sites.