Legal Research

A True Summer Internet Search Story

This true story doesn't start out funny. A close and old (not that old - just 50) friend was getting ready for an Alaskan Cruise. As Mary (not her real name) packed and tried on clothes she fell and broke her right hip and left wrist. Yuck. She doesn't have a full length mirror so she stood on the edge of the bathtub to see her hem length and fell in. Double yuck. [She now has a full-length mirror.]

Anyway, the hospital repaired her hip and wrist (twice) and got her started on physiotherapy. She was able to work on the physio from home and re-organize the house and family around her. Her family was very nice to her even though they had to cancel the cruise to Alaska.

Anyway, she was coming along nicely when she got a little worried by a clicking sound in her hip. Did she phone the library? Did she phone the great TPL Consumer Health Information Centre? Did she call her doctor? Of course not, she went on the Internet.

So she searches the Internet in direct violation of Abram's rule that no one should ever search their OWN medical conditions alone online. This I learned from deep personal experience.

She finds a site that seems directly on point - clicking sounds in the hip!

She reads the first paragraph. It doesn't sound good.

She reads the second paragraph. It's beginning to sound pretty scary.

By the third paragraph tears are welling in her eyes as she fears more medical interventions and pain. She's getting quite worried.

The fourth paragraph starts . . .
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"Once you reach the paws . . ."

Yes folks, Google can't separate vet sites from human sites. But you knew that.

Maybe we need to license sick people to search and offer training at the point of need.

Anyway, 'Mary' provided my laugh of the summer, despite her pain. (BTW, the clicking is nothing abnormal.)

Stephen

Full post as published by Stephen's Lighthouse on August 19, 2008 (boomark / email).