Can Google Diagnose Illness Better Than Doctors?

A WebmasterWorld thread links to a popular recent study where Google returned the right diagnoses 58-percent of the time.

Dr Tang and Dr Ng selected 26 difficult cases presented in the New England Journal of Medicine, including Cushing's syndrome, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, encephalitis and cirrhosis.

They then plugged the symptoms of each case into the search engine to come up with a diagnosis.

When these diagnoses were compared with the correct published diagnoses, the researchers found that Google got it right 58 per cent of the time.

They say an online search is likely to be more effective at helping to diagnose conditions with unique symptoms that can be used as search terms

So is Google able to diagnose a patients illness better than a Doctor would? That is currently the joke in the forum thread. Are Doctors right more than 58-percent of the time. :)

Danny has a write up on Google MD? How Doctors Use Search from a while back and you can also meet the Google Doctor.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.