I can only imagine your frustration as a physician, I’ve seen the look on my own doctor’s face when I mentioned researching something online. It actually made me feel like I was being ‘naughty’ for trying to understand at a deeper level what was happening with my body, that he would have preferred I just blindly took his suggestions without question.

Even given that, there are multiple sides to this complex issue. Yes, doctors, researchers and scientists have spent years studying to be able to provide the evidence-based advice you do. However, it’s important to recognize that a patient can go to several physicians for the same issue and each will recommend a different approach (speaking from experience having a chronic autoimmune disorder for over ten years).

What each physician studied in college, specializes in and continues to educate themselves about is different, so how is a consumer to understand what is actually the right choice?

I’ve kind of felt like an experiment, I suppose that’s why they call it ‘practicing medicine’, because we tried this and we tried that, over and over changing medications and dosages.

What I realized is there’s more that we don’t know about the body than what we do at this point. Not to in any way denigrate the enormous progress we’ve made in medicine or any other scientific field, just being real about it. Most of science is a theory, that we are working to validate, when we begin to see anything as THE TRUTH, we leave no room to account for error or new learning.

While it could be dangerous for some to look up symptoms online (WebMD) in terms of increasing your anxiety about something you don’t even have or not pursuing a critical treatment, I believe overall this trend is positive.

Patients are more than ever, engaged in their own care and treatment. For years, patients went to their doctor and just did whatever they said. No offense intended, but people back then still died of cancer and heart attacks.

And part of the exponential interest in homeopathic or natural supplements is a belief that in many cases our body and the natural world knows how to heal — albeit not everything. This is a predictable reaction to the greed, lobbying and politicization that goes on with Big Pharma and the FDA, who in my humble opinion have contributed more to this issue than any medical advice website or holistic practitioner.

People are saying, just because you tell me this drug or treatment is ok, doesn’t mean I’m automatically going to believe you. More people understand the research process than ever before, how few subjects are usually tested and the limited data on lifelong effects. Just take the fact that a company can spend years and millions of dollars to develop an FDA approved drug that is extremely addictive and has caused an epidemic in our country and yet a medicinal plant that anyone can grow in their backyard is still illegal — perhaps a topic for another time.

All you have to do is listen to the litany of side effects the lawyers make the drug companies recite during the ads, to make you wonder, was what I had before better than all that?

This independent thinking by patients can either be empowering or dangerous to their health, depending upon the circumstance. I hope we can begin to develop a deeper partnership between doctors and patients, as a matter of fact I won’t see anyone who doesn’t approach it that way. Doctors are incredible, give so much, are here to serve and help people heal. Patients also have a role, they live with their body and their symptoms daily. They can observe what happens after a certain treatment, whether things are getting better or not. We need to work together…