(This is Part 2 of a 2-part series. You can find part 1 here.)

Almost everyone is susceptible to self-diagnosis from well-meaning searches, but some people are more prone than others. When I was in medical school 39 years ago, before the internet took off, we called it Medical Student Disease. It usually involved one or more of us, depending on what ordinary symptoms we had that day, wondering if we had the disease we were studying. It usually subsided when we got into enough detail about these diseases to realize we didn’t have them. I’m sure it’s a side-effect of the training of any healthcare professional. 

Possible Hazards

Using Dr. Google to make a self-diagnosis in order to avoid seeking medical care, second-guess your primary care provider, or seek alternative treatments can cause a lot of problems.

Delaying the Correct Diagnosis and Treatment

Using Google to make a diagnosis may lead to a misdiagnosis and delay the correct diagnosis. It can be further delayed for those who have difficulty surrendering their self-diagnosis after seeing their healthcare provider.

Cyberchondria

Cyberchondria is a form of illness anxiety disorder (formerly called

This is Part 1 of a 2-part series.

The internet is full of medical information. Much of it is accurate and current, but some of it is inaccurate, out of date, misleading, biased, or downright advertising. Moreover, sometimes weird-sounding things actually work (for example, fecal transplants for C. difficile infections). On the other hand, there are perfectly seemingly logical solutions that are not effective (such as antibiotics for most ear infections).

However, accuracy is not the major problem with online medical information. The problem is that too many people use Dr. Google for self-diagnosis. While it may be tempting to use the internet as a way of avoiding going to a healthcare professional, it’s not really up to the task.

Many people seeking a diagnosis search their symptoms and look at the results as confirmation of their condition. In addition to possible misinformation, this eliminates the crucial role of the medical history and physical examination in the making of a diagnosis.

This approach is fraught with danger. While incorrect results can be falsely reassuring, they will more likely be