• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

33 Charts

  • About
    • What is 33 Charts?
    • Bryan Vartabedian MD
  • Blog
  • 33mail
  • Foci
    • Social/Public Media
    • Physicians
    • Patients
    • Hospitals
    • Information
    • Process/Flow
    • Technology
    • Digital culture
    • Future Medicine
  • The Public Physician
Information, Patients, Physicians

Doctors and the Google Threat

December 2, 2015 By Bryan Vartabedian · Reading Time: < 1 minutes

Google-doctor-mug-300x300You may have seen this image floating around. The funny thing is that this is something I would have expected in 1997. At the the time we were adjusting to the idea of information as the 3rd party in the exam room. Patients had a heady sense of power; doctors had to adjust to a shifting relationship.

Patients now seem to have a more mature relationship with information. In my daily practice most seem to recognize that information can’t be equated with knowledge or wisdom. Parents seem to have a good sense of where information fits into our relationship.

I’ve found that the benefits of information access outweigh the time sometimes required to reconcile a what’s been learned. And there are times when the patient shows me new things.

The world has moved beyond the idea that patients have access to information. This is the way that 21st century patients learn and connect in a medically complicated world. I’ve yet to meet a patient who doesn’t respect my capacity to put their problems into the right context. I’ve yet to meet one who’s insight didn’t contribute to what we were looking to fix together.

Access to information represents one of the earliest and most powerful forces redefining doctors and patients. Other technologies are poised to shape us further. If as physicians we can’t position ourselves in this changing clinical space, we’ll continue to see ourselves as victims of the next new thing.

Check out E-patient Dave’s mug riff over at e-patients.net.

Related Articles

  • What Patients are Searching For
  • Should Doctors Google Their Patients?
  • Doctors on the Record

Tagged With: Google, Search

Related Articles

  • What Patients are Searching For
  • Should Doctors Google Their Patients?
  • Doctors on the Record

Primary Sidebar

Bryan Vartabedian, MD

Bryan Vartabedian, MD
Bryan Vartabedian is the Chief Pediatrics Officer at Texas Children’s Hospital North Austin and one of health care’s influential
voices on technology & medicine.
Learn More

Popular Articles

  • The Fate of Fired Cleveland Clinic Resident Lara Kollab
  • Cures Act Final Rule – How It Will Change Medicine
  • 12 Things About Doximity You Probably Didn’t Know
  • Should Physicians Give Their Cell Phone Number to Patients?
  • Doximity Dialer Video – Telemedicine’s Latest Power Player

Sign up for 33mail newsletter

Featured Articles

Reactive and Creative Spaces

Doctors and social media: Damned if you engage, damned if you don’t

The Rise of Medicine’s Creative Class

Context Collapse and the Public Physician

The Case for New Physician Literacies in the Digital Age

  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter

Footer

What is 33 Charts?

With a mashup of curated and original content that crosses the spaces of digital health, media, communication, technology, patient experience, digital culture, and the humanities, 33 charts offers unique insight and analysis on the changing face of medicine.

Founded in 2009 as a center of community and thought leadership for the issues doctors face in a digital world, 33 charts was included in the National Library of Medicine permanent web archive in 2014.
Learn More

Foci

  • Digital culture
  • Digital Health
  • EHR/Health IT
  • Future Medicine
  • Hospitals
  • Information
  • Patients
  • Physicians
  • Process/Flow
  • Quality
  • Social/Public Media
  • Technology

Copyright © 2023 · 33 Charts · Privacy Policy