Using the Web to understand your medical condition
The Internet can be your friend when it comes to treating a serious medical condition.
Andrew Schorr, author of the new book The Web-Savvy Patient, says you should always get a diagnosis from a doctor, and then use the Web to educate yourself.
"There may well be advocacy groups, certain non-profit groups - a breast cancer group, a brain cancer group, a tumor group, an epilepsy group. And then certainly there may be communities of people living with those conditions and they want to help," he said.
So how do you approach your doctor with the information you may find online?
"So if you walk in with 50 pages printed from the Internet and your doctor has a 15-minute appointment and they have things they want to discuss, that is not the way to go. I say approach it as a business meeting. You have a clear goal and maybe two or three things you are trying to accomplish," said Schorr.
Schorr suggests calling ahead and having a note put in your file that you want to talk to your doctor about a few specific things during your visit.
Finally, there's a lot of bogus health on the Web. So you need to be careful and never pay for medical information online.
Andrew Schorr, author of the new book The Web-Savvy Patient, says you should always get a diagnosis from a doctor, and then use the Web to educate yourself.
"There may well be advocacy groups, certain non-profit groups - a breast cancer group, a brain cancer group, a tumor group, an epilepsy group. And then certainly there may be communities of people living with those conditions and they want to help," he said.
So how do you approach your doctor with the information you may find online?
"So if you walk in with 50 pages printed from the Internet and your doctor has a 15-minute appointment and they have things they want to discuss, that is not the way to go. I say approach it as a business meeting. You have a clear goal and maybe two or three things you are trying to accomplish," said Schorr.
Schorr suggests calling ahead and having a note put in your file that you want to talk to your doctor about a few specific things during your visit.
Finally, there's a lot of bogus health on the Web. So you need to be careful and never pay for medical information online.
Learn about changes coming to commenting