Jimmy 2004Sorry but I don't intend to trust google with my health... GPs may get it wrong but at least they see you in the flesh. Nice idea but it won't ever be 100% trustworthy (admittedly what is?) and I could see it becoming an online feature to diagnose small problems giving people a wrong diagnosis on something that could be much more serious - think of the lawsuits then.

D_o_SGoogle is a useful aid for anybody, no doubt. Taking Google yet another level higher, a medical research study proposes that Google could actually help doctors diagnose illnesses. The test, which you can download at the British Medical Journal's site, attempted to clarify what role internet search engines can play in health care.

The result is actually quite startling; Google correctly diagnosed 58 percent of the medical cases proposed, in the other 42% Google gave a diagnosis, which was not detailed enough to be considered correct. The article isn't particularly long and is well worth a read, with the conclusion advising that doctors receive training in Google searching to make the most of the resource:

"Physicians have been estimated to carry two million facts in their heads to fulfill this role [diagnostician]. With medical knowledge expanding rapidly, even this may not be enough. Search engines allow quick access to an ever increasing knowledge base. Google gives users ready access to more than three billion articles on the web and has far exceeded PubMed as the search engine of choice for retrieving medical articles."

Source: Bit-tech