How Good a Doctor Are You?

Getting a medical degree is not easy: It requires 10 years of medical education and 16,000 hours of clinical experience to get certified to provide treatment. Even so, most of us think we can make equally as good diagnoses as our doctors—as long as we have a little help from Google.

Getting a medical degree is not easy: It requires 10 years of medical education and 16,000 hours of clinical experience to get certified to provide treatment. Even so, most of us think we can make equally as good diagnoses as our doctors—as long as we have a little help from Google.

A Wolters Kluwer poll out this morning finds that not only are most consumers turning to the Internet to answer medical questions, but that they also put strong faith in their own diagnosis. Among college educated Americans, 63 percent say they have “never” misdiagnosed themselves. Add in those who have say they’ve “rarely” made a wrong call and the number jumps up to 84 percent.

More by Sarah Kliff at Ezra Klein’s blog.

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