EDITOR’S NOTE: In her column Beyond Rx, Andrea Wong, a 4th year Doctor of Pharmacy (PharmD) candidate from the University of Waterloo, and a very new member to the Manitoulin community, will be exploring topics on health and wellness, medical advances, and everything in between in the pages of this newspaper
by Andrea Wong
It’s Saturday night and you’re out for dinner catching up with some old friends. You’re having a great conversation when suddenly someone says something that contradicts what you know. A heated debate ensues and there is only one way to determine the who is right. You take out your phone and consult the all-knowing Google.
The Internet is a weird and wonderful place. The sheer amount of information that exists in the cyber world is so plentiful that it is hard to sort through. A lot of people ask “Dr. Google” their questions about their medications, symptoms, and health conditions. However, when using the internet to look up medical information, getting false information from unreliable sites can have serious consequences. Here are some questions to ask yourself when reading up on medical information online:
Is this site reliable?
Take a look at the organization hosting the site can easily give you a good idea of the reliability of the information. For example, it is clearly better to get nutrition advice from the Canadian Diabetes Association website over a blog called Sally’s 100 ways to lose weight blog. If you don’t recognize the organization, the link of the website can also give you clues. For example, links ending in “.org”, “.gov”, and “.edu” are more reliable than commercial websites ending in “.com” since there are certain regulations on who are able to have those link endings.
Is the author reliable?
Look for the credentials of the author to determine if the article is written by a health professional with the necessary background and knowledge on the topic.
Is the information accurate and current?
Medical information is constantly changing so a good rule of thumb is to ensure the information you are reading is less than three years old. The accuracy of the information can also be judged if the author provides credible sources so you can see where they are getting their information from.
Is the information too good to be true?
As with many things in life, common sense will always save you at the end of the day. If the website is claiming things that are too good to be true, then it probably is and the website may just be trying to sell you their product. Always watch out for bias.
With that being said, if you find yourself wanting to fact check all my articles from now, I will not take any offense. However, if you find that evaluating medical information online is just too much work, as always, just bring it to your healthcare practitioner to get their opinion and we will gladly do the work for you.
