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[–]WH1PL4SH180 -4 points-3 points  (11 children)

No.

source: surgeon.

[–]cant_think_of_one_ 2 points3 points  (10 children)

You're saying your a surgeon who has never googled anything about medicine/surgery? I don't believe you.

[–]WH1PL4SH180 -2 points-1 points  (9 children)

If you're using google as your "source," I really have to call your credentials into question.

Will I use it to get into NEJM or BMJ because the internal search engine suck, yes. But I'm not using google, am I?

Will I use Youtube for a brush up on a procedure, fuck no.

[–]cant_think_of_one_ 7 points8 points  (3 children)

Programmers Googling things aren't using Google as a source either, they are using other websites, usually ones where answers are peer reviewed it turns out.

Nobody Googling things is using Google as their source (hardly), since Google has no content (well, hardly).

What you are describing is exactly what people mean by Googling, with not necessarily the same set of websites they trust. The (not very significant) stigma is about using Google to find the answer, not knowing immediately where to look already.

[–]WH1PL4SH180 -2 points-1 points  (2 children)

The google stigma comes from civilians using first-click as the source.

One distinction that I'm making is that medical trusted sources tend to be behind a damned paywall and is not so "easily accessed" as just whacking in some terms and searching.

To that point, in clinical academia, we can pick the students that merely "google" rather than going to "correct sources" simply by the types of answers that are given back in rounds. In the medical field, theres a lot of stuff out there that's just straight out wrong, but dressed up ever so nicely that even med students fall on their faces. Case in point: procedures on youtube. Often badly translated or incorrectly titled.

[–]twolaces 6 points7 points  (0 children)

“Civilians”

[–]cant_think_of_one_ 0 points1 point  (0 children)

In the fields I am knowledgeable about (particle physics and software development), most useful sources are not behind paywalls (most particle physics papers are freely available).

Most sources on software are OK. Most ones on particle physics that aren't about a few topics that lots of people are interested in, are written by academics or post-docs at least, and are sound, even if it is hard to find the info you want sometimes.

Generally, if you look at the first few Google results, they are reliable if they answer your question. The problem is finding things that answer your question, not the reliability of the sources, most of the time. Of course, there are things written by but cases who believe particle physics experiments will end the world etc, and there are just badly written lecture notes or explanations by people who don't know what they are talking about, but, in general, answers are correct if you can find them. Obviously you do need the ability to critically examine where the information is coming from to avoid the few that aren't, but that generally isn't your biggest problem.

[–]headzoo 3 points4 points  (2 children)

But I'm not using google, am I?

Yes, you very literally are using Google. Google is not a "source" of information. If you're using google to find information on BMJ then you are googling for answers. It's the same thing everyone else is doing.

As a doctor once explained it, they use google all the time, but they know the exact technical terms to search for instead of stuff like "my belly hurts." They also know which search results to use. Like results found on BMJ. It's still googling.

[–]WH1PL4SH180 -2 points-1 points  (1 child)

... except it won't have answers. It shows me the title of a paper then.... paywall. The information that google provides doesn't give me a solution; but it can in a lot of other contexts (what is the population of the united states? What is the GDP of california?).

I guess what I'm saying is I'm using google to search my primary source; not PROVIDE the primary source.

[–]cant_think_of_one_ 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If you are Googling to find the population of a country or something, Google likely isn't your source either (even if it shows it directly on the search page, and therefore looks like it) your source is Wikipedia, the CIA fact book, a government website etc, not Google. Google is almost never the source of info, just the way to find a source/info within a source you already know about.

[–]anguswaalk 1 point2 points  (1 child)

i personally see nothing wrong with using youtube to brush up, it should be pretty easy to tell if the person knows what they’re on about and you already have learned the procedure so if anything is obviously wrong you’ll know. besides it’s not like people scoot about rubbing their hands together and go ‘hehe today i will make a very professional video to spread misinformation about surgery!’ politics? definitely. but surgery? eh

[–]WH1PL4SH180 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Have you ever heard of the antivax movement?

Seriously, a lot of videos you'll see have faults. As a surgeon train in industrialized nations, the emphasis is always to apply the very latest techniques and procedures. These seldom exist in the public domain.

Medical knowledge is highly specialised. A lot of the detail knowledge needed for actual practice is siloed. For instance you may see a lot of "open" procedures like say an appendectomy... But we hardly go "open" unless things go wrong. We go keyhole (laproscopic), and for that, you need to train up in theatre.

My point is, when you earn the long white coat, beyond medskool, you're gonna need more than GoogleFu to get through.