Internet is no substitute for doctor
Net result is half-baked knowledge can be dangerous.
Chennai: When a doctor prescribed a nebuliser - a drug delivery device to administer medication - to a 96-year-old woman suffering from asthma, her grandson asked her not to do so due to serious side-effects. He had read this on Facebook. From the side-effects of Crocin, which is an over-the-counter medicine, to morphine, everything is available on the Internet and patients surf it to find out the side-effects or symptoms they have.
Dr K. Rajkumar, consultant pulmonologist, Fortis Malar Hospital, says, “Most new patients I see ask many questions that they read about on the Internet. Recently, I saw a patient who complained of chest and back pain and came up with this medical term ‘spina bifidia’. He had done extensive search and asked me what to do. I was not able to react to his question.”
He says that patients can always clarify doubts and discuss them with doctors. “But don’t rely on the Internet. If you don’t trust a doctor, ask for a second opinion.
Every drug has side-effects, but we doctors know the dosage and whom to prescribe it for,” says Dr Rajkumar, explaining how a 24-year-old IT professional visited him with signs of tuberculosis.
A test for TB confirmed it and the doctor gave drugs for treatment. “He consulted another doctor who prescribed the same drugs. But this man searched the Internet and read the side-effects of those drugs and stopped taking them. After two months, his parents visited me saying that he was suffering severely. When he returned, he was diagnosed with miliary TB, the most severe form of TB. Had he taken the treatment, it would have been very different, but the tuberculosis had become advanced,” explained the pulmonologist. Prof K.S. Ganesan, professor of cardiovascular and thoracic surgery, Rajiv Gandhi government general hospital, said recently, he had performed angioplasty and the patient asked many questions that he said he had read about on the Net.
Doctors point out that patients can clarify any doubt, but not depend on the information overload that is easily available. “Don’t be misguided as inappropriate knowledge is not good,” cautions Dr Rajkumar.