The internet is the greatest potential resource for the doctor patient relationship of the past century. Use it wisely, and with healthy skepticism, as it has more potential benefits, but also more potential pitfalls than many other resources.
Advantages:
1. Access major medical libraries at all hours.
2. Keep up with latest news, a low cost publishing medium.
3. Search databases.
4. Retrieve in-depth information.
5. Connect with people worldwide with similar problems.
6. Print out pages of info about prescription drugs, illnesses, treatments.
7. Mostly for free! (Especially government sites.)
8. Sometimes more complete than your physician can provide.
9. The wild frontier, the good and bad, the true and false, the complete
and dangerously incomplete jostle together.
Need constant guard against dubious material.
Disadvantages:
1. Relatively more recent content, less older information is online.
2. Alas, all information is not available.
3. High chaff to wheat ratio.
4. Liability issues and responsibility remain unclear.
5. False, inaccurate, expensive data abounds.
6. *Cannot substitute for care by your physician or health care provider.*