It was a Friday night and Dr. James Valek had clocked out for the day. But the doctor knows better than to think his day is ever done. In the stands at his daughter's basketball game, his cell phone chirped.

又是一个礼拜五傍晚,已打卡下班的詹姆斯·瓦莱克医生却明白自己的工作还没有结束。正在观众台上看女儿篮球赛时,他的手机响了。

Calling was a new mother, frantic after spotting an odd mark on her baby daughter. An online search had the woman convinced her baby had the measles.

来电者初为人母,发现自己女儿身上有奇怪印记后,她惊慌失措。通过在线检索,她确信自己的宝贝身患麻疹。

More patients every day - at their office, on their lunch breaks, late at night - are searching the Internet to diagnose every oddity and symptom they find.

越来越多的病人在办公室,或是午休时分,抑或深更半夜上网检索在自己身上发现的每一个瑕疵和征兆的症状。

But doctors here say the wealth of information doesn't necessarily help the health outcomes in their lives.

不过,医生说,这些丰富的信息未必能解决他们生活中的健康问题。

"This was a well-educated person who was just worrying herself silly," said Valek of his house call. "The problem is, is the information correct? How people sort through whether that information is truly reliable - that's the difficulty."

“这是一个受过良好教育却杞人忧天的例子,”瓦莱克如此评价自己这次出诊。“问题是,他们的检索结果正确吗?人们如何从中筛选出真正可靠的信息——难点在这里。”

The increased numbers of patients self-diagnosing online has led to more cases of what Dr. Prashant Deshpande calls "Google-itis" - when healthy people excessively type symptoms into the Google search engine.

数量不断上升的网络自诊病人出现普拉山特·德斯汉潘德(Prashant Deshpande)医生命名为“谷歌病”的情况,这些健康人士过多的在谷歌搜索引擎里查询各种症状。

That can lead to patients demanding extra testing, as they worry of rare conditions they read about online but which their doctor has discounted in their particular health scenario.

这样患者会产生做更多检查的需求,因为担心自己成为网上提到的特例,但主治医师已将这些发病率极低的疾病从自己专攻领域里剔除。

The Internet has emerged as a more trusting source for patients, too, creating an uphill battle for physicians.

互联网的兴盛为病人带来一种更可靠的消息来源,这对内科医生来说,也将是一场逆境中的苦战。

In embracing the Internet's role in their patient's health care, doctors said they create better relationships with their patients. No longer is it between a doctor who knows all and a patient who knows nothing.

医生们承认互联网对患者在卫生保健方面起到一定作用,认为互联网与病人建立的关系更佳。不再是无所不知的医生与一无所知的患者的关系。


(中文翻译来自译言网)

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