As you may already know, I had a baby six weeks ago. :)
This experience (and parenthood in general), has made me acutely aware of a dramatic change in the way I deal with health issues. Since bringing my daughter home, our family has visited the doctor’s office four times and my husband suggested that I make an appointment today - meaning that our family is edging dangerously close to averaging one doctor’s visit a week over the past six weeks. We would have easily made that average, too, if it weren’t for my obsession with trying to solve our family’s “medical mysteries” prior to making the decision to see a doctor. Tell me your symptoms and I’ll look them up with several combinations in either a Google search or a search on one of my favorite medical websites. My own recent healthcare management got me thinking - today’s youth will no doubt manage their own healthcare in ways that their parents and grandparents - people who turned to desk reference and handed down home remedies - would scarcely recognize.
In the world of Google, if you feel ill, you can enter your symptoms into a search box exactly as you would describe them to a doctor and get a list of possible illnesses. Going one step further, seeking out reputable medical websites like WebMD or MayoClinic.com will provide you with a symptom checker feature that will allow you to go through a list of possible symptoms. In my experience, it is not even necessary to use medical terms in your search - go ahead and type in “sore” or “aching”... the built-in controlled vocabulary knows you mean “enflamed”.
Now, if you skew toward the hypochondriac end of the spectrum, this might not be a good thing for you. But if you already suspect that the symptoms you entered are related to a specific illness - strep throat, for example - you can rule out the African Sleeping Sickness and Apricot Seed Poisoning that will show up as results in your “achy joints, fever, chills” symptom search and zero in on more reasonable causes of your symptoms.
If you already know what you’re dealing with - either because it is easily diagnosed (diaper rash) or you have already sought and received a diagnosis from a doctor, sites like WebMd and MayoClinic.com give a detailed breakdown of many conditions, including causes, symptoms, diagnosis, and treatment. Today’s patients (and those of the future) have the ability to arm themselves with information about their conditions that make it possible for them to be proactive in preventing recurrence of more common illnesses and partners in determining the type of treatment that they will pursue when they are ill.
During one of my recent illnesses, I discovered that the information that is available to us digitally goes beyond symptom checks and diagnosis information. I was totally unfamiliar with a medication I had been prescribed and was not clear on how it would alleviate my symptoms. When I searched the name of the medication, I was brought to Drugs.com (a legitimate site, thank goodness) where I was able to read about the medication in plain English AND read patient reviews of the medication (it received a 9.2/10 from users). Additionally, you can sign up to receive email alerts about specific medications - when it is in the news and if warnings are issued regarding its use.
So how do I see this fitting into media literacy? When we try to teach media literacy to our youth, we encourage them to engage with what they watch, hear, and read. We ask them to analyze and think critically about the information that is delivered to them. Though we don’t often think of it, when educating our youth about evaluating messages and information, we must not overlook health information. More than ever, information (both reliable and otherwise) about our health and how to protect it is being delivered to us in ways that were not possible a mere twenty years ago. TV ads for antidepressants, decongestants, birth control, and cholesterol medications bombard us as we watch our favorite shows as pharmaceutical companies vie for our healthcare dollars.
Though we should not attempt to offer medical advice to our young people, we should be willing to talk to them about where they can find reliable information about their health and encourage them to take an active role in educating themselves about where the messages about how to live a healthy life are coming from. As in any area of their lives, we should encourage young people to be aware of the issues that surround healthcare so that they can, when it is appropriate, make good decisions about how to care for themselves and their families.
No comments:
Post a Comment