Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day. I'm your host, Elise Hu. We all have Googled our symptoms a billion times a day, in fact. But what happens when even a doctor with 20 years of experience starts doubting his own treatment because of what his Instagram feed is telling him?
We're very willing to have this attitude of, why not try it? What's the harm? You know, someone else had a good experience, so maybe we will too.
That's John White, a physician and the former chief medical officer of WebMD. In his talk, he explores why we're so quick to trust online sources of information about our health and how you can search your symptoms without spiraling.
These are powerful tools in terms of generative AI and chat GPT and Google, but they don't know your history. They can't do a physical exam.
Chapter 2: Why do we often feel anxious after Googling our symptoms?
And in many ways, they're causing more confusion. I want you to become informed. I want you to become empowered. But the challenge is information isn't knowledge. That's coming up after a short break.
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And now our TED Talk of the day.
It's human nature. We all have searched for symptoms that we might be having. Maybe it's a mole on our skin, a cough that we're experiencing, or a headache. And what happens after 10 minutes? We don't become more clear on what we might be having. we're more confused and more concerned.
So we're talking about joy, but then how can we have joy when we're searching about our health and we're having some of these challenges? And as I said, we all do it. You know, I used to come out and ask people, how many of you have searched health conditions online? Now I say, how many of you have searched for health issues today? Because I want to share a statistic with you. A billion.
A billion. Nine zeros.
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Chapter 3: What challenges do doctors face with online health information?
That's how many search on health there is every single day. and it's actually going up. And when you put it into context, is how many is that every hour, every minute? And up until recently, I was the chief medical officer at WebMD, and many of you likely ended up at WebMD. And at WebMD, the motto is, better information leads to better health. And as a physician, I firmly believe that.
I want you to become informed. I want you to become empowered.
Chapter 4: What is the impact of generative AI on health searches?
But the challenge is information isn't knowledge. Remember the phrase TMI? Do people still say that, too much information? Typically, we would say it about what? We'd say it about someone's giving you too much personal information. It makes you feel awkward, maybe a little anxious. Well, TMI also is around health.
Too much information when you're searching for your symptoms actually can create anxiety, can actually be dangerous. So I saw a patient two years ago. True story. I'm going to call her Mary. That wasn't actually her name. But Mary came in because she had what's called cerumen impaction. Anyone ever hear that? Basically means your ears clogged with wax. It's very common.
Now, Mary had searched it online. And she saw, rightfully, that hearing loss can lead to dementia. So she was very concerned that she was having decreased hearing, even though it was only for a day, very concerned about it. She also read that too much earwax could be signs of infection, which I'll tell you that's not the truth. But she was very focused on getting the wax out of her ear.
So she had read that hydrogen peroxide is actually pretty good if you mix it equally with water. But what she did was she microwaved it and then she put it in her ear.
Chapter 5: How does too much information lead to confusion about health?
And obviously she came into the office because she had a burned ear canal, very red, very irritated. And I said to her, Mary, Why? And maybe I shouldn't have said it like that, but that exactly is how I said it. Why? And she said, I read it online. And I thought it wouldn't hurt. But it did. And that's the challenge. Remember the phrase hypochondriac?
People that have symptoms and every symptom is always the most serious. Well, now we have this phrase, you might have heard it, cyber conjure act, right? You go online. I always feel cyber conjure acts should be like crime solvers because they look at every detail. Everything is magnified and it's always the worst case scenario. My 12 year old is a little bit of a cyber conjure act.
So the summer, he had a bit of a blister on his foot because he needed these Kobe cleats that were too big for him, but he insisted he needed them, and he developed a blister. It wasn't healing after a couple days. It started to look a little infectious, and my wife took him to urgent care. They cultured it. They gave him an antibiotic.
They came home that evening and I said, you know, how did it go? And he says to me, you know, it could be MRSA. And I thought, hmm, that's pretty clever for a 12-year-old, but MRSA's still kind of unusual. And he said, and this antibiotic doesn't cover it. And he was right in terms of the information that he found. Now, the next day, I get a call from the doctor's office. It's MRSA.
And I think, how am I going to tell him that? But it was, and he did need to have the antibiotic changed. And my point is, sometimes the information you search is correct. Often it is, but you have to put it into context. Now, just to be fair, my wife had some knee pain just last week after starting back up at the gym. And he goes over to her and he says,
could be jumper's knee, which is patellar tendonitis. It's not. It's just she just started to work out. So now her knee is bothering her. But I get it. These are powerful tools in terms of generative AI and chat GPT and Google. But they don't know your history. They can't do a physical exam. And in many ways, they're causing more confusion.
What I talk about is it's really the issue of clarity versus confusion. And if you want to have joy, if you want to use symptom checkers and the web and AI to understand your health better, and I want you to become more empowered, it is about having clarity versus confusion. And that can be challenging. There's a lot of misinformation out there.
And algorithms often drive you to inaccurate information. So the feeds on Instagram are often driven by algorithms and what you search. So my younger son, that's my older son, I have a younger son who very much wants a golden retriever. So my Instagram feed is loaded with goldies, where I think everyone has a goldie, or it's on a lot of wellness information, having been at WebMD and a physician.
And like many people in the population, I'm on a statin for primary prevention because of high lipids. And I've been starting to, I like to read other doctors' feeds. And there's a bunch of cardiologists that are saying, you don't really need to be on a statin. It really should be diet and exercise. And that statins actually can increase dementia, not decrease dementia. Now, here I am.
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