As a health professional... how do you handle patients who go to google to diagnose themselves?

Many medical professionals are intimidated by a patient who is educated on their diagnosis and feel threatened by the patient and develop a bad attitude in their discussions with the patient or the patient’s family member . Keep an open mind and allow and truly listen to the patient or family member . Control your feelings

GOOD for them ! They want to learn. Write your questions down and we will see if we can answer them for you too, as every patient's response to a condition/disease is not always the same. I am so proud of you to want to take charge of your health!!

I would tell them that even though you may try to self diagnose there are too many illness that may present similar symptoms. They only way to know for sure and to receive correct treatment is to go to your health care provider.

Tough question as there are many scenarios in which this could be disruptive, and other scenarios in which it is harmless. Try with leading questions like, "It sounds like you are curious about your condition, what questions has your treatment team not answered that our LICENSED medical professionals may be able to clarify for you?" or "When using search engines, like Google, you risk excluding important details about your individual condition that are specific to you." Ultimately, a patient may go to Google because they do not trust the medical team, getting to why there is a trust issue is important. If these approaches do not work, understand that as much as you can lead a horse to water, you can't force them to drink. If Dr. Google syndrome interferes with the patient's treatment plan, then be transparent and let the patient know they have the right to refuse any treatments related to the current physician's diagnosis and orders.