1. Don't get buried
You can find what you need--if you stay focused
You'd like to check out a new drug your doctor has suggested. Or you might be wondering about surgery for back pain or how best to deal with a newly diagnosed heart problem. Do you look for help in the cluttered vastness of the Web? In back issues of newspapers or magazines? Maybe there's a new book. . . . The brain shuts down. It's all too much. You can't possibly find the information you need.
Ah, but you can. The prime directive of an info hunt, however, is to know what to look for. Most people don't, says internist Donald Vickery, coauthor of Take Care of Yourself , a guide that connects symptoms to illnesses and, through diagrams called decision trees, aids readers in deciding whether they need a medical professional.
Suppose a woman has just been told she has breast cancer. Among the questions Vickery would like her to put to the doctor: What are the qualifiers--are you sure of the diagnosis? What is known and unknown about my condition? Are the lymph nodes involved? "She needs adequate knowledge," says Vickery.
But coming up with such questions, difficult anytime, is more so under an emotional cloud. A "personal decision guide" devised by the Ottawa Health Research Institute (OHRI), which studies how people make medical choices, might help you collect your thoughts. The form is generic, applicable to almost any medical situation. It can be completed online at decisionaid.ohri.ca/decguide.html or printed out.
As you step through, the guide nudges you to consider whether you have enough information to understand your situation, to compare various options, and, in the end, to arrive at a conclusion on your own, without being pressured by others. When you're done, where you stand will be clearer. And you'll most likely have specific questions to talk over with your physician.
To fill in information gaps or educate yourself before or after an office visit, you might think about going to the hospital. Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago is among a growing number of facilities that have set up health learning centers. Medical librarians are available for one-on-one sessions, and most centers are open to anyone.
And there is, of course, the Internet. Its raw power is unquestionable but often squandered. Those who are new to the Internet as an avenue to medical information seem to regard it more or less as an eighth grader does who needs to write a report on World War II: Use that as a search term, hit enter, and apres vous le deluge . Health searches unleash a similar torrent. No one could systematically wade through the more than 10 million websites and million or so news groups that come up by entering "diabetes" into Google. The natural inclination is to click on a few sites that look promising and give up. That could be why, in one survey, fewer than half the consumers who researched chronic conditions such as heart problems or depression online said they came away better understanding their condition or how to treat it.
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