A Doctor in the Mouse?

There's a really interesting article in Salon today about patient access to medical information on the web. It's written by an M.D. and is a counter to the petulance (I almost said flatulence) that appeared in Time magazine (and online) titled "When the Patient Is a Googler." The Time article is also by an M.D. I never thought I'd hear an intelligent, educated person (a scientist, no less) turn 'Googler' into a dirty word.

I have a close friend who goes in for a four-level cervical laminoplasty next week. Since this is spinal surgery, he wanted to learn as much as possible about the procedure and the recovery and the success rates and all the, you know, really pertinent stuff. So he turned to the Web. Now he feels much better (though he did have a tough time seeing a video of this operation on YouTube).

So, raspberries to you, Time medicine man - time for a upgrade!