A patient of mine with Crohn's disease had stopped his medications and was experiencing a flare. He had heard about stool transplants (still experimental) and felt this was the right treatment for him. After consulting a do-it-yourself internet site, he transferred his wife's stool into his own intestines and suffered even more debilitating symptoms. He eventually agreed to restart his prior therapy, improving a week later. My patient is a physician.
Over 90 percent of patients search the internet for medical information, mostly on WebMD, the Mayo Clinic website and Wikipedia.
In order to understand where patients with inflammatory bowel disease were getting information outside of their physician, my colleagues and I performed a study. We found that over 90 percent of patients searched the internet for information; most patients landed at WebMD, the Mayo Clinic website or Wikipedia. While these sites can serve as useful places to obtain general information, they do not contain enough nuanced and individualized information to allow patients to make fully informed decisions. They cannot properly weigh the benefits and risks of a specific therapy in the context of a patient's unique circumstance. The most reliable website ( and the one I recommend), CCFA.org, didn't break the top three results.
As someone who has a special interest in managing this complex illness, my physician colleagues often refer their most difficult patients to me for a second opinion. Oftentimes, patients had not improved because they refused to entertain effective therapies because someone, somewhere (but always on the internet) had terrified them into inaction, provided inappropriate advice for my patients specific situation, or overestimated the benefits of "natural" remedies and diets.
As a physician, who manages an illness for which there is currently no cure, and for which multiple treatment regimens may well be viable choices, I have to remain open-minded about my patients' choices. Nevertheless, my goals are to use the knowledge and experience accumulated over my career to improve symptoms, preserve quality of life and help avoid complications (like hospitalization and surgery) - all while respecting my patients' autonomy. That sometimes means having to ask my patient to stop asking Dr. Google for advice.