The advent of the internet and most people owning a computer these days, has really changed the face of medicine and how patients research their own medical problems. This is something we often see in the office with patients who actually bring in articles and ask very pertinent questions to their medical problem, which is a great thing.
Patients are able to take a more proactive approach in their own medical decision making and provide physicians, such as myself, with their interests and concerns regarding their issue that they’ve been able to research on their own. One of the downsides of the internet and researching your own medical problems are that you don’t know what parts of the internet that you’re looking at are actually accurate. The job of urologists and physicians is to separate the facts that are truthful from the facts that are false. That is where we come in to help elucidate this to the patient and make them feel more comfortable about their decision and plan of care.