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Medical Economics Journal
0610, 2019 Edition
Volume 96
Issue 11

Your voice: Empowered patients - Are they just misinformed?

Our readers respond to recent articles.

Regarding your article about empowered patients (April 10, 2019 issue), I think you should change the title to over/misinformed patients.

Just because someone has access to all the medical information they can read does not mean they are qualified to interpret it. I would argue that patients are not even close to being qualified to interpret the glut of information and misinformation on the internet.

Even though I’m a family practice doctor I could very easily research airplane repair on the internet. Will you fly in my jet? I doubt it. The only thing I can say possibly about the “empowered patient” is that they are good for business. All their research always leads to a self-diagnosis of cancer-which brings them into my office for an accurate diagnosis. Long live the internet.

Lee Morgentaler, DO
Tappan, N.Y.

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