Hacker News Reader

WebMD is mostly famous for being a thorn in the ass of doctors, when panicked patients insist that their latest symptom is definitely cancer, and not trapped wind. They're a gift to unethical pharmaceutical companies and they add little to no value.

But don't take my word for it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebMD#Criticism

View on HN

This happened to me in my early twenties. I'd have some symptoms, look them up, and it always led to either cancer or aneurysm. It actually made me a hypochondriac for years, and I had to just stop.

The thing to realize is that the map between illnesses and symptoms is many-to-one. Given some symptoms, doctors assume the most common thing (because then they're right most of the time) and WebMD assumes the scariest thing (because it benefits their traffic).

When I was a practicing pharmacists it was the bane of my existence. Can't wait for some ChatGPT skin to put it out of business.

Just the ability of ChatGPT to calmly remind people that a collection of symptoms, without a proper exam (and maybe tests) can only rarely lead to an accurate diagnosis.

That, and it won't immediately say "Cancer"

Reply on news.ycombinator.com