The General Practitioner. Your local family doctor. Some of you may love him, I personally go as little as possible, but what if the GP were to disappear? Why, you may ask? Self-diagnosis. It's already happening. Whether its WebMD or consulting your local alternative medicine expert, people are frustrated by the pill pushing industry that surrounds medicine and it could be that technology is finding a way to give you the skills and abilities to do your own tests on your own time and make your own analyses.

Check this out:



Now, admittedly, his frequency of self-stool samples is alarming, but he does present an interesting point: patients can take control of their own health and their own diagnoses. The article resource he is referring to, pub-med, is available through most public libraries, absolutely free. If you connect with your local librarian, they can not only help you sift through all the research like a pro, but also pull in copies of text-bound resources from all over the world. The only trick is READING it all.

But medical information resources are not the end of this. There is also an availability of self-diagnosis that goes beyond to "do it yourself" stool sample tests described in this video.

Take this kickstarter project:

If you wanted to keep track of a creepy amount of data on your heart rate and you breathing without carrying around a box and looking like a cyborg, you could get in the ground floor of this technological operation and get your very own computerized armband to wear wherever you go.

This shift in health thinking seems to be backed up by new obamacare legislation as well, as many of your health records (and all your tests and numbers) may soon be available to you electronically to do with what you will. The article also points back to the startups that I have been mentioning.

The question is: is that really what we want? It is true that the last time I went to the doctor was when I was in Korea. I am not sure if I really want to go back to a doctor in the United States who gives me the run-around and, for a fee, doesn't tell me what's wrong with me. Maybe changing the incentive structure is good for medicine.

After all, I actually liked going to the doctor in Korea. I remember when I first got there, I had a stomach infection. It was lucky we were in the medicine district, because I just stumbled down the street right into a stomach doctor. He agreed to see me, talked to me for a minute and then declared that I should "Get some rice soup and then you should be fine". I went out to the desk and I asked them what I was supposed to pay. They looked at each other in a panic and finally got the doctor because none of them spoke good enough English. The doctor was equally confused, though, "I didn't do anything!" he said, "Why would I charge you?"

Technology certainly won't destroy the GP anymore than I believe that the internet will destroy the librarian. But it will compete, and that might just be the kick that will change healthcare in this country.

O.O
» Midnight on 2013-05-29 05:46:30

cool.
» Zanzibar on 2013-05-31 04:29:19

do u detox?
» renaye on 2013-06-04 09:17:34

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