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American Morning
Medical Web Sites Lend Information
Aired December 06, 2002 - 08:41 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Time to talk health news now. Whether the ailment is small or serious, we all count on medical advice to make treatment decisions. But in the fast-changing world of medicine, some people are looking beyond their own doctors for information.
Joining us from Atlanta to tell us more about this trend, our own Dr. Sanjay Gupta -- Sanjay, good morning.
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Daryn. Yes, medical search engines. There is no question they have become quite popular. A couple of points to keep in mind when talking about these.
First of all, if you or a loved one has ever been sick, certainly arming yourself with as much information as possible is something that a lot of people do. They go to the Internet. It's a part of a way that they take control.
Second point, is that it is very difficult for doctors to keep up on every cutting edge clinical trial that is out there.
So these two things coupled make it no surprise, then, that these medical search Web sites are becoming increasingly popular.
A couple of them that we sort of looked through some of them ourselves and found a couple of them, one of them called HealthResource.com. This is one that actually will provide you with a bound volume, 75 to 200 pages. Alternative treatments, standard treatments, experimental treatments. They are not making any specific recommendations.
Then there is another one, CancerAdvisors.org. Actually five oncologists will provide sort of like a second opinion, sometimes about some of the rare, more unusual cancers especially, and provide a more detailed assessment of your own particular condition.
So these are a couple of the Web sites. There are lots of them out there, Daryn, and it is no surprise, like I said, that they are becoming increasingly popular as people try and arm themselves with that information.
KAGAN: But looking at some of the pictures of those Web sites, Sanjay, it looks like some of these services cost hundreds of dollars.
GUPTA: Yes, they can be quite expensive, $150 to $550, some of them even more expensive if you actually get follow-up recommendations. What these Web sites do is they are scouring all the medical journals, they are trying to find the journals that are most applicable to you, and send those to you regularly, and that can be a pretty expensive service after a while.
KAGAN: So some of it you could do yourself if you had the time and inclination to go through the Internet, but you might miss some things, I guess is the idea of these services?
GUPTA: I think that is part of it. You might miss some of the things. It is kind of hard to contextualise a lot of this information. For instance, if you look up a particular cancer, you are going to find all of these different Web sites, all these different articles and stuff like that. It is not all going to be necessarily applicable to your direct sort of disease or cancer or whatever it is that you're looking up, so this is going to provide a little bit more context.
I stopped short of saying it is going to give you full context, because they certainly don't do that. They're not specific for any personal recommendations, but they do provide a little bit more context.
KAGAN: Let me turn the tables on you for a second here. As a neurosurgeon, what do you think when a patient or a family member comes into your office and says, Well, I know that is what you're recommending, but I'm on the Internet here, and I see that this is what you're really supposed to do to treat this spine injury or this brain tumor.
GUPTA: Right. Well, I think that is a very fair question, actually, and I'll be the first to admit that it's very difficult for doctors to keep up on every clinical trial that is out there.
So especially for something that commonly is without much hope in terms of treatment or cure, something that is unusual, I think it's wise for patients to go ahead and arm themselves with as much information as possible.
Having said that, there is a big difference between information and knowledge, and actually being able to contextualize that information, and turn it into knowledge that is applicable for any given patient. That is the real key. So, having those doctor-patient conversations, that relationship is still very, very critical. I sort of think about these med-search engines and all that sort of stuff as 50 percent information, 50 percent hope. A lot of it just empowerment for the patients, which I think is a good thing ultimately.
KAGAN: Right. But in the end, you have to be careful of not providing the wrong kind of hope. You could see something on the Internet or from one of these services, and it could be giving you a kind of hope for your disease or your condition that is just not realistic.
GUPTA: That's right, and a lot of these -- the better Web sites, I think, the better search engines, actually will actually provide some information about the disease, try and give people a context to put their own personal disease in, but don't actually make recommendations.
I think it's very dangerous if a Web site is making recommendations, especially about treatments that are not mainstream or are not standard that have not been tested.
If that is happening, if you're on a Web site that is actually doing that, I would be very careful, very cautious. There are some skeptics of these Web sites as well, there is some skepticism about them. We can look at some of what people say.
Rarely is it actually health professionals that are involved with these Web sites. That is obviously a problem. Privacy protection -- this is sort of interesting. You are sending some of your most intimate details to a Web site about your physical health. No independent assessment. What you see is what you get. No one is going back and verifying an independently assessing. And then finally, you still need to have those doctor conversations to contextualize all of that information.
KAGAN: Information can be power, but don't forget to talk to your doctor.
GUPTA: Absolutely. As always.
KAGAN: Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thank you so much.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired December 6, 2002 - 08:41 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Time to talk health news now. Whether the ailment is small or serious, we all count on medical advice to make treatment decisions. But in the fast-changing world of medicine, some people are looking beyond their own doctors for information.
Joining us from Atlanta to tell us more about this trend, our own Dr. Sanjay Gupta -- Sanjay, good morning.
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Daryn. Yes, medical search engines. There is no question they have become quite popular. A couple of points to keep in mind when talking about these.
First of all, if you or a loved one has ever been sick, certainly arming yourself with as much information as possible is something that a lot of people do. They go to the Internet. It's a part of a way that they take control.
Second point, is that it is very difficult for doctors to keep up on every cutting edge clinical trial that is out there.
So these two things coupled make it no surprise, then, that these medical search Web sites are becoming increasingly popular.
A couple of them that we sort of looked through some of them ourselves and found a couple of them, one of them called HealthResource.com. This is one that actually will provide you with a bound volume, 75 to 200 pages. Alternative treatments, standard treatments, experimental treatments. They are not making any specific recommendations.
Then there is another one, CancerAdvisors.org. Actually five oncologists will provide sort of like a second opinion, sometimes about some of the rare, more unusual cancers especially, and provide a more detailed assessment of your own particular condition.
So these are a couple of the Web sites. There are lots of them out there, Daryn, and it is no surprise, like I said, that they are becoming increasingly popular as people try and arm themselves with that information.
KAGAN: But looking at some of the pictures of those Web sites, Sanjay, it looks like some of these services cost hundreds of dollars.
GUPTA: Yes, they can be quite expensive, $150 to $550, some of them even more expensive if you actually get follow-up recommendations. What these Web sites do is they are scouring all the medical journals, they are trying to find the journals that are most applicable to you, and send those to you regularly, and that can be a pretty expensive service after a while.
KAGAN: So some of it you could do yourself if you had the time and inclination to go through the Internet, but you might miss some things, I guess is the idea of these services?
GUPTA: I think that is part of it. You might miss some of the things. It is kind of hard to contextualise a lot of this information. For instance, if you look up a particular cancer, you are going to find all of these different Web sites, all these different articles and stuff like that. It is not all going to be necessarily applicable to your direct sort of disease or cancer or whatever it is that you're looking up, so this is going to provide a little bit more context.
I stopped short of saying it is going to give you full context, because they certainly don't do that. They're not specific for any personal recommendations, but they do provide a little bit more context.
KAGAN: Let me turn the tables on you for a second here. As a neurosurgeon, what do you think when a patient or a family member comes into your office and says, Well, I know that is what you're recommending, but I'm on the Internet here, and I see that this is what you're really supposed to do to treat this spine injury or this brain tumor.
GUPTA: Right. Well, I think that is a very fair question, actually, and I'll be the first to admit that it's very difficult for doctors to keep up on every clinical trial that is out there.
So especially for something that commonly is without much hope in terms of treatment or cure, something that is unusual, I think it's wise for patients to go ahead and arm themselves with as much information as possible.
Having said that, there is a big difference between information and knowledge, and actually being able to contextualize that information, and turn it into knowledge that is applicable for any given patient. That is the real key. So, having those doctor-patient conversations, that relationship is still very, very critical. I sort of think about these med-search engines and all that sort of stuff as 50 percent information, 50 percent hope. A lot of it just empowerment for the patients, which I think is a good thing ultimately.
KAGAN: Right. But in the end, you have to be careful of not providing the wrong kind of hope. You could see something on the Internet or from one of these services, and it could be giving you a kind of hope for your disease or your condition that is just not realistic.
GUPTA: That's right, and a lot of these -- the better Web sites, I think, the better search engines, actually will actually provide some information about the disease, try and give people a context to put their own personal disease in, but don't actually make recommendations.
I think it's very dangerous if a Web site is making recommendations, especially about treatments that are not mainstream or are not standard that have not been tested.
If that is happening, if you're on a Web site that is actually doing that, I would be very careful, very cautious. There are some skeptics of these Web sites as well, there is some skepticism about them. We can look at some of what people say.
Rarely is it actually health professionals that are involved with these Web sites. That is obviously a problem. Privacy protection -- this is sort of interesting. You are sending some of your most intimate details to a Web site about your physical health. No independent assessment. What you see is what you get. No one is going back and verifying an independently assessing. And then finally, you still need to have those doctor conversations to contextualize all of that information.
KAGAN: Information can be power, but don't forget to talk to your doctor.
GUPTA: Absolutely. As always.
KAGAN: Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thank you so much.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
