The authors of that now-famous BMJ study worry about the fire they started:

“Some have misinterpreted our paper as advocating the use of Google as a main tool in diagnosis,” Tang says.

A quick Google search soon after the release of the study, “Googling for a Diagnosis,” in the November online British Medical Journal, shows he may have some cause for concern. Amid growing interest in how physicians use the Internet, some comments posted on health blogs and websites after the study came out suggested that search engines are as good as doctors, one even saying they are “a better diagnostic tool than the stethoscope.”

What some in the blogosphere missed, Tang says, is that the Internet is particularly useful in the hands of a physician or other healthcare experts. “Clinicians have a better handle on which symptoms are unusual and for the technical terms for the symptoms,” he says. The more precise the search terms, the more accurate the diagnosis. “Also, there’s a lot of rubbish on the Web, and an expert can weed that out quickly.”