Doctor Google (Dr. Google)

“Doctor Google” or “Dr. Google” describes when a person uses the internet (especially the search engine Google) to find medical advice. That advice might be helpful, or might be useless, or might even be harmful. Many people use “Doctor Google” in addition to an actual doctor.
     
“Dr. Google” was printed in Newsday (Long Island, NY) and other newspapers on January 13, 2005. “Doctor Google will see you now..” was printed in The Yorkshire Post (Leeds, UK) on December 8, 2006.
     
“Doctor Google” or “Dr. Google” is also sometimes used when someone consults the internet for non-medical information and advice as well.
   
   
Wiktionary: Doctor Google
Etymology
As though the Google search engine were the surname of a medical professional.
Proper noun
Doctor Google
1. (Internet, informal) The Internet when used to seek out medical advice.
Alternative forms
. Dr. Google
. Dr Google
 
Wikipedia: Google
Google LLC is an American multinational technology company that specializes in Internet-related services and products, which include online advertising technologies, a search engine, cloud computing, software, and hardware. It is considered one of the Big Four technology companies alongside Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft.
           
13 January 2005, Newsday (Long Island, NY), “Seniors take baby steps online, Study finds only 3 in 10 who are 65 or older have used the Internet, meaning others miss out on research tool” by Richard J. Dalton Jr., pg. A48:
“Now in 2005, it’s more high stakes,” she said. “A doctor doesn’t always have time to go through all the health questions that someone might have, but the Internet has time. Dr. Google has time.”
     
8 December 2006, The Yorkshire Post (Leeds, UK), “Doctor Google will see you now..,” pg. 1:
Medics once flicked through weighty medical encyclopaedias to get to the root of particularly tricky symptoms, but with more and more GPs Googling their patients’ details,
 
Ed Walker welcomes the dawn of the digital doctor.
 
Twitter
Tom Morris
@tommorris
I’ve figured out why I’ve been feeling shitty recently. I think I’ve got dentin hypersensitivity. Dr. Google sure is helpful, if a little weird.
5:14 AM · Feb 2, 2007·Twitter Web Client
 
Twitter
advertising
@Advertising
Doctor Google: Healthcare Through Search (http://tinyurl.com/29cjza)
6:36 PM · Jul 30, 2007·Twitter Web Client
 
Twitter
John Braine
@trontsephore
Dear Doctor Twitter. If bread & weetabix make you feel sick, have you most likely developed a wheat intolerance?  Doctor Google didn’t know.
5:23 AM · Oct 2, 2008·Twitter Web Client
 
Urban Dictionary
Dr Google
A person medically qualified by Google’s search engine to diagnose symptoms of sickness.
Mrs. Smith: My son has Dengue fever. I searched it on Google.
Dr. James: Really? That’s what Google says? Send him to emergency immediately!
Dr. James: *note to self: Mrs. Smith’s Son is fine. Mrs. Smith however has a case of Dr Google.
by biLLiDinHo/fLaVinHA April 18, 2009
 
Urban Dictionary
Dr Google
{alternative definition}
Dr Google is the professional advice you defer to when performing online searches for information using the google search engine. Dr Google knows all.
(...)
by Pi_Junglecat April 27, 2009
 
Urban Dictionary
Doctor Google
Someone who is not a medical professional and uses the Internet to self diagnose a disease, medical condition, or other illness often with extreme inaccuracy.
Doctor Google, in Exam room 4, said according to the internet he has a tumor in his head as big as a basketball.
by boomshockalockas June 06, 2011
 
ACP Internist
ONLINE RESOURCES | NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013
Patients increasingly checking ‘Dr. Google’
More than a third of patients have gone online to identify a medical condition, raising concerns about “cyberchondria” and requiring physicians to adapt to help patients differentiate the helpful websites from the misleading ones.
By Stacey Butterfield
As a family physician who has used an electronic medical record for 12 years, Gary Bevill, MD, sees himself as open to new technological advances. But the advent of Internet tools that allowed patients to enter their symptoms and receive possible diagnoses displeased him and many physicians.
 
Google Books
Title “Facharzt Dr. Google?!”: Untersuchung der Online-Recherche von Gesundheitsinformationen und deren Bewertung im Zusammenhang mit Ausprägungen auf dem Merkmal Cyberchondrie
[“Specialist Dr. Google ?!” : Examination of the online research of health information and its evaluation in connection with occurrences of the characteristic cyberchondria]
Author Sabrina Schluckebier
Publisher Verlag nicht ermittelbar, 2016
   
healthline
Anonymous Nurse: Please Stop Using ‘Dr. Google’ to Diagnose Your Symptoms
While the internet is a good starting point, it shouldn’t be your final answer to diagnosing your symptoms
Medically reviewed by Carissa Stephens, RN, CCRN, CPN — Written by Anonymous Nurse — Updated on March 22, 2019
 
Medical Press
MAY 17, 2020
New research finds ‘Dr. Google’ is almost always wrong
by Edith Cowan University
Many people turn to ‘Dr. Google’ to self-diagnose their health symptoms and seek medical advice, but online symptom checkers are only accurate about a third of the time, according to new Edith Cowan University (ECU) research published in the Medical Journal of Australia today.