When the temperature drops and cold season kicks in, a trip to Health Services means an icy trek across campus, struggling in the biting Boston wind. For some students, though, visiting the doctor is increasingly free of white gloves and urine samples. Instead, they can find health advice from the comfort of their dorm room with a few keystrokes and a double click.
According to a recent Pew Internet and American Life Project study entitled "Americans Find Answers Online in Sickness and in Health," an increasing number of Americans are relying on the Internet to find important health information. Using Web sites like the popular WebMD.com, users can enter a list of symptoms and search for a matching ailment or look up more information about a specific condition.
Tufts' Health Services Web site also includes links to a variety of medical resources, addressing issues from eating disorders to sexual health.
According to the study, 12 percent of respondents, representative of 17 million Americans, found the Internet "crucial" or "important" when helping a friend deal with a major illness. Of those respondents, 58 percent said information they found on the Internet was the "most important" resource they had used, while only 38 percent found their most important sources offline.
According to senior Shigeki Abe, who works with Tufts Emergency Medical Services (TEMS) to help respond to on-campus medical emergencies, health Web sites can be a useful background source for Tufts students. Abe said he sometimes sees students using the site to find information about minor problems.
"I think if it's less serious injuries, such as aches and such, people consult the Internet first. I usually consult WebMD or similar sites," he said.
Abe said his friends are likely to consult Web sites before a live doctor as well. "Most people just wait it out and if it doesn't get better, they call TEMS or go to Health Services," he said.
According to Health Services Clinic Manager Kathleen O'Dea, however, students should always see a doctor before relying on the Internet for information.
"The Internet is a good resource, but I don't know if it's a good first choice for students to try to diagnose themselves with a problem," O'Dea said. "In fact, it can be a hindrance when students look at that kind of information before seeing a doctor, because it can cause a lot of fear when students start diagnosing themselves based on these broad and sometimes far-fetched symptoms."
Sophomore Yeonjung Park said she's wary about depending too much on the Internet for medical treatment, remembering an instance when her friend was stung by a bee and looked online for treatment advice.
"Everybody has different symptoms for different illnesses, so online advice may not always be accurate," she said. Park recounted a lecture she'd heard in her Feminist Philosophy class about Web sites over-generalizing the first symptoms of cancer without taking into account the differences between men's symptoms and women's symptoms.
The survey showed that only six percent of those who had used the Internet for health purposes found information that was false or that made the experience more difficult. However, according to Abe, who agreed that he had never come across false information on a credible Web site, the information people find online can be dangerously unclear.
"I think the risk comes in when a Web site starts giving more in-depth treatments such as telling people what medications to take and such. Each injury is different and different people show different symptoms, so unless they see a doctor, treatment and diagnosis is very hard," Abe said.
O'Dea said students often come into the clinic asking to have very specific tests or treatments based on information they've found online. Frequently, she said, physicians find the tests and treatments these patients actually need are much different from those they request.
"Once you've been evaluated by a human being who can take into account your overall health and your history, it can be a good tool to then look up more information about a problem the physician diagnoses," O'Dea said. "The danger is that I think a lot of students tend to read too far into the information before they've consulted with anybody, and end up misinterpreting their symptoms."
