[afro-nets] How Google is changing medicine

[Jawad Asghar <jawad@alumni.washington.edu>]

How Google is changing medicine
-------------------------------
Editorial

A medical portal is the logical next step
BMJ 2005;331:1487-1488 (24 December),
doi:10.1136/bmj.331.7531.1487

What a remarkable year it has been for those of us monitoring
changes in the global information landscape. Since last Christ-
mas, there has been a flurry of activity: the digitisation of
the world's libraries began in earnest (despite the copyright
fracas); open access publishing gained much-needed support in-
ternationally (especially in science and medicine); and Google,
MSN Search, and Yahoo introduced a number of customisation tools
for desktops and mobiles, podcasts, blogs, and video searches.1
2

Google's influence and power is writ large in the search field­
so large that librarians are asking themselves some difficult
questions. With all of this technology and freely available
digital information, what will happen to physical libraries?
Google's mission is to provide access to the world's informa-
tion­but this is librarians' mission too. Will they be needed in
the new information age?3

For all the benefits technology provides, it does provoke anxi-
ety. In a recent letter in the New England Journal of Medicine,
a New York rheumatologist describes a scene at rounds where a
professor asked the presenting fellow to explain how he arrived
at his diagnosis.4 Matter of factly, the reply came: "I entered
the salient features into Google, and [the diagnosis] popped
right up." The attending doctor was taken aback by the Google
diagnosis. "Are we physicians no longer needed? Is an observer
who can accurately select the findings to be entered in a Google
search all we need for a diagnosis to appear­as if by magic?" In
a post-Google world, where evidence based education is headed is
anyone's guess.5 Googling your diagnosis; Googling your treat-
ment­where is all this leading us?

Google has won the battle of the search engines, at least for
the time being (see example in table), and its more serious
minded offspring, Google Scholar, is rapidly gaining ground.
Within a year of its release Google Scholar has led more visi-
tors to many biomedical journal websites than has PubMed (J
Sack, personal communication, 2005). Once they discover it, many
medical students and doctors prefer Google Scholar.6 Although
both tools benefit from Google's trademark simplicity, Google
Scholar indexes more peer reviewed research and is especially
quick in locating highly cited items and the proverbial needle
in a haystack. Doctors are encouraged to consult Google Scholar
for browsing and serendipitous discovery, not for literature re-
views; and they should use the advanced search page to find
words and names that occur often in the medical literature.


Scholar's mode of presentation hinders its usefulness and may
take up valuable time. Google's algorithm­which weighs the sig-
nificance of articles­may be partly to blame. The quantity of
search results is acceptable, but quality is often not. Using
some of the subject tags in advanced mode may offer some assis-
tance, and more precision. Because current articles are not dis-
played first, and cannot be sorted, downloaded, or emailed­
expect to do a lot of sifting.

Still, Scholar does simplify basic searching for doctors, and
it's free, like PubMed (www.pubmed.gov). For anyone not affili-
ated with a large medical centre or university, the ability to
search for and access research material that is available free
on the web is a boon.

As scientific societies and associations consider moving their
journals to open access models, Google Scholar and Elsevier's
Scirus (www.scirus.com/srsapp/) will likely provide a reliable
gateway to this information. The most useful feature to come out
this year on Google Scholar is "cited by" referencing. This free
tool links searchers to other scholarly papers that have cited
the paper being viewed. Scholar also provides links to local li-
brary catalogues through its library link program and through an
international database called WorldCat.7

In searches for clinical trials and systematic reviews, Google
Scholar should of course never be used in isolation. However, it
is a useful addition to PubMed, Cochrane, and other trusted
sources of information, such as the TRIP or UpToDate databases,
or a good medical librarian. For hard to find government or con-
ference papers, don't forget to search regular Google in addi-
tion to Google Scholar.8

Some basic questions remain for Google Scholar. What does Google
consider "scholarly"? Will Google ever tell us exactly what is
in the database? Could the Google algorithm present the most
current research at the top of the results display? And how of-
ten will Google update the database?9 10

What do we make of Google's future? Google's past success seems
predicated on a simple business principle: do no evil. Founders
Sergey Brin and Larry Page are said to be interested in using
Google's computers to advance the cause of medical science. Ap-
parently, Google's data mining techniques are well suited to
analysing gene sequences in the human genome project. It may
even be possible for patients to "google their own genes" one
day.11

But "do no evil" is a far cry from "do what's best for human-
ity." Google is still a business. However, if it wishes to do
something for medicine, Google should consider creating a medi-
cal portal. Call it Google Medicine; design an interface with
medical filters and better algorithms; lead to the best evidence
(just don't forget to consult with librarians about where the
evidence is located). This kind of all purpose tool is badly
needed in medicine, particularly for developing countries.

Build Google Medicine. The benefits to human health would be im-
measurable.

Dean Giustini, UBC biomedical branch librarian

University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1Z1
(giustini@interchange.ubc.ca)


Competing interests: None declared.
References

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http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/051213-155047 (accessed
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Dimov V. Text-to-speech programs and continuous medical educa-
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Lindberg DAB, Humphreys BL. 2015­the future of medical librar-
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Henderson J. Google Scholar: a source for clinicians. CMAJ
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--
Rana Jawad Asghar MD. MPH.
Coordinator South Asian Public Health Forum
mailto:jawad@alumni.washington.edu
http://www.DrJawad.com
Typhoid Net http://www.typhoid.net