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Comment by andyking | Hacker News Reader

Surely the best place to find medical information is via your GP / doctor, not Google?

Certainly, but there are plenty of situations when people will consult Google before figuring out that they are having a medical emergency. Someone could for example google for "vomit like ground coffee" and realize they are probably bleeding inside and need to rush to the ER.

Doctors use Google, too.

http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2011/11/10/study-nearly-half-...

Best along what dimension? Time? Common symptoms? You get to call up, wait for someone to become available, answer a ton of screening questions.

What if you don't have a regular doctor, because you haven't seen one in a while and just got your first real job? Well, you have to wait to establish a doctor/patient relationship before you get any advice.

Plus, have you ever actually tried to get a medical question answered without an appointment? They say to check with a doctor before taking tylenol, but realistically ... no.

In many cases, yes, an online diagnostic is going to be much faster and about as accurate as the doctor.

Try searching for [poison control] or [suicide]. Both of those bring up one boxes with phone numbers to call. Those probably help save a couple lives per day. Sure, you could call 911 and have them give you the poison control number, but now you've tied up 911 resources.

I'm sure that the 911 operator won't mind, especially if it is or could be a genuine emergency.

Speaking as a former 911 operator, I can say fairly certainly that a 911 operator won't object to you calling to try and access the poison control center. They'll probably just transfer you, OR (more likely, depending on the policies of the jurisdiction in question) go ahead and dispatch an EMS crew to your location.

I would think that the time saved not looking up those numbers yourself and just dialing 911 would make it worth always dialing 911.

What about people in the US without medical insurance? They have a problem but want to consult online first to see if they can justify the cost of a doctors visit.

I'm sure this happens.

Been exactly there, done exactly that.

> via your GP

You do realize tens and tens of millions of people don't have GP's right?

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