The patient, the physician, and Dr. Google (original) (raw)

In July of 2002, I watched as my wife, a practicing obstetrician/gynecologist, was deluged with telephone calls as scores of her patients began processing the news that the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute had halted the combined estrogen and progestin arm of the massive Women's Health Initiative clinical trial because of concerns of risk over invasive breast cancer. What was perplexing about the experience, I recall, was that many of the women calling had already downloaded a preprint of a JAMA article explaining the institute's decision a full week before the print issue had arrived at my wife's desk. Naturally, the callers were filled with questions. One of my wife's more innovative solutions was to invite interested patients to a journal club review of the online article, so that they could go over and digest the new information together.