With the rise of the internet over the last two decades, information has become increasingly easier to access. The dawn of the internet has fuelled many changes; the most notable of these changes being Twitter making the Arab Spring possible. So what impact has the internet and the media had on medicine?

The internet has made medical information freely accessible with a few clicks of the mouse. There are thousands of websites dedicated to health and medicine. This has led to an increasing role of the media and the internet in medicine. Unfortunately, however, this increased role has not been entirely positive.

It is now all too easy to do a google search of the symptoms one is suffering. Doing so will give one many sites all of which give a list of possible diagnoses. While many sites can provide useful information about a possible diagnosis and treatment plan, there will also be many sites which unnecessarily scare patients or give unrealistic treatment plans.

Doctors have expressed concern over the rise of the ‘misinformed patient’. When patients enter a consultation with an incorrect self-diagnosis or an unrealistic treatment plan it can lead to confrontation or tension with the doctor. In some cases, it could even lead to patients losing trust in their doctor. This, clearly, is not a positive impact of the internet on medicine.

So what sort of misinformation can the internet feed to patients? Firstly, general symptoms such as fatigue or fever could give results such as cancer. This sort of misinformation could be at the very least worrying to someone. Then there is the problem of unrealistic treatments being advertised on the internet. For example the popularity of stem cells in the media could give the false impression that they can be used to grow new organs or new limbs. Dissatisfaction with the NHS could be driven by treatments not available on the NHS being given as the best plan (of course this sometimes is the case, however most patients gain little to hear that the treatment they are receiving is not optimal). Perhaps, worst of all, is the tendency of the media and the internet to cause a large amount of hype around experimental treatments which are in the early stages of clinical trials. Quite often these treatments never appear, and if they do they do not have the wonderful benefits proclaimed in the media (again there have been exceptions like tamoxifen).

The wealth of information that is on the internet is no substitution for a medical degree. While a correct diagnosis and treatment is undoubtedly going to be on the internet, it takes a certain degree of prior knowledge to be able to discern a likely from an unlikely diagnosis and treatment. This does not mean that doctors would prefer patients to be entirely ignorant; in fact medicine has moved to a model in which the doctor and patient come to a joint decision from the paternalistic or autocratic model. Clearly if decision is to be a joint one between the doctor and the patient, it is important that the patient is properly informed.

A solution to this problem may be for greater regulation of medical information available on the internet. However, the idea of regulation of information (such as SOPA) on the internet always causes some unease. Perhaps the best thing would be for a warning to the general population from taking the information as being completely accurate. If the patient enters the consultation both being the doctor and patient being open-minded, then the problem of the misinformed patient may be resolved.