The woes of finding medical information

Yesterday was one of those days where I was very thankful to have the science background that I have and the ability to read and understand primary literature. I received a call from my doctor’s office letting me know that I have a condition for which I will need to follow up with the doctor to discuss the treatment plan. I had not heard of this condition before and, being a researcher, I immediately got online to gather my own information. Typically you can do a quick Google search on any medical issue and come up with more information than you could read in a lifetime. Much to my surprise that was not the case this time.

Apparently this condition, although not incredibly serious, is very rare. Rare enough that I found roughly ten web pages that essentially had the same material cut and pasted into each. What I found was not particularly good information, not detailed and left me with a lot of questions. However, among the pages I found were several medical journal articles that went into much greater detail and provided me with at least a little more ammunition to walk in with when I discuss everything with the doctor tomorrow. Fortunately I have the ability to read and understand this type of writing and am not intimidated by it even though there are plenty of things within that I did not understand. For most people this would be a daunting task and very few would even attempt to read these papers.

This is, unfortunately, one of the issues with health care today. Individuals are left to put 100% of their trust in doctors because they simply do not have access to the information they need to be in control of their own care. In many cases this can be a problem if the doctor is, for lack of better words, uninterested in the patients health and unwilling to do the research needed to better treat them. I think at one time or another we have all experienced a situation like that.

I will be heading into my appointment with a list of questions and a pretty decent understanding of the disease, its complications and the treatment methods. I have no qualms in questioning the doctor if I do not feel that what he prescribes is the right treatment. Although I am not a doctor and will, in the end, follow whatever he says, I can at least do so in an educated fashion. And, at the end of the day, I definitely learned some new and interesting stuff in the world of microbial biology! Since this disease is so rare maybe I should change research tracks so that I can find some more answers about this elusive microbe!