Do PubMed and Google searches help medical students and young doctors reach the correct diagnosis? A pilot study

In the era of the World Wide Web we sought to examine whether the use of PubMed and Google can help physicians to improve their diagnostic skills.

Twenty-six diagnostic cases presented in the case records of the New England Journal of Medicine during 2005 were used for our analysis. Three investigators (one trainee doctor and two final year medical students), tried determining the diagnosis, initially without and afterwards with the use of PubMed and Google.

A slight increase in the proportion of correct diagnoses obtained was seen following the employment of the formerly mentioned Internet resources, specifically 15.4%, 2.9%, and 11.5% increase for the 3 investigators respectively (from 17 correct diagnoses out of the 26 cases to 21 correct diagnoses out of 26 for investigator A, from 11/26 to 12/26 for investigator B, and from 11/26 to 13/26 for investigator C). This increase was not statistically significant. One investigator was helped more by Google, one by PubMed, and one was equally assisted by the two resources.

We believe that these preliminary findings justify the induction of further studies in order to clarify whether resources such as PubMed and Google may substantially aid physicians and medical students in the differential diagnosis process.