a thoughtful web.
Good ideas and conversation. No ads, no tracking.   Login or Take a Tour!
comment
user-inactivated  ·  3833 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Trust your doctor, not Wikipedia, say scientists

I hope that they corrected the errors that they found. If they did, today's error rate would certainly be lower than when the research began.

It's worth keeping in mind that doctors also have alarmingly high rates of misdiagnosis or completely missing issues (http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1656540). Of course the body is complicated and they can't really be blamed for making mistakes when they are doing their best. The point is, though, it's a lot easier to go and correct a factual error on Wikipedia than it is to correct a bad doctor's patterns of behavior. And it's a lot safer to double check Wikipedia to verify what a doctor said and to get a better sense of whether a second opinion is needed than it is to blindly accept any information they give you.

edit: Given JamesTiberiusKirk's great response below, I wanted to note that I didn't intend this comment to be an attack on doctors or to suggest that they are bad at their job. I wanted to underline the inherent potential for errors, even by experts, and that no opinion should be trusted 100%.