Monday, June 25, 2012

Where Are All the Single-Edged Swords?

David Gorski, on Science-Based Medicine, has a detailed post about the internet as a means of conveyance for consumer health information.

The super short version is that, as we're well aware, it's awesome and wonderful that huge amounts of good medical information and patient support are available to anyone with an internet connection--and it's kind of terrible that huge amounts of wildly unreliable medical information are available to anyone with an internet connection.

In our library skills classes for the medical students, we try to point out reputable consumer health sites with solid information that doctors can suggest to patients (good old MedlinePlus!), but sadly not everyone can have a librarian following them around on the internet pointing out key markers of an authoritative site.

Not just yet, anyway. That's totally part of my vision for a brighter future once I run the world, though.

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