Create an automatic differential diagnosis list with Google Squared

"Google Squared is a search tool that helps you quickly build a collection of facts from the Web for any topic you specify. Facts about your topic are organized as a table of items and attributes (we call them "Squares" for fun). Customize these Squares to see just the items and attributes you're interested in. See the websites that served as sources for the information in your Square. Save and share Squares with others."

Nobody should use Google as a substitute for their doctor. Keeping this in mind, the search engines are evolving (Google, Bing and others) and can be interesting educational tools. See a few examples below:



Differential diagnosis of chest pain. Click here to see my shared "square."

The automatically generated list of differential diagnoses is incomplete and somewhat inaccurate (as expected). However, the concept is interesting and you can edit the list to remove erroneous entries and add new ones.



Google Squared differential diagnosis of shortness of breath, I added a CXR column. Click here to see my shared "square."

Medical educators can build their own "squares" and share them with residents and students. They can use the fields pre-populated with data by Google or create their own.

According to Google, "this technology is by no means perfect. That's why we designed Google Squared to be conversational, enabling you to respond to the initial result and get a better answer. If there's another row or column you'd like to see, you can add it and Google Squared will automatically attempt to fetch and fill in the relevant facts for you. As you remove rows and columns you don't like, Google Squared will get a fresh idea of what you're interested in and suggest new rows and columns to add. See it in action in the video below."



References:
Google Squared Live. Google Operating System.
Google Squared Is Live. Blogoscoped.
Square your search results with Google Squared. Google.
Topics Discussed During the Internal Medicine Rotation at Cleveland Clinic in May 2008
Topics Discussed During the Medicine Consult Service Rotation at Cleveland Clinic in April 2008
Using a Blog to Build an Educational Portfolio. CasesBlog, 1/2007.

Related:
Google Squared: quality improvements, sorting and exporting. Google Blog, 2009.

Updated: 10/09/2009

Health News of the Day

Health News of the Day is a daily summary made from the selected links I post on Twitter. It is in a bullet points format with links to the original sources which include 350 RSS feeds that produce about 2,500 items per day.

• Frequent Moves Increase Suicide Risk in Teens, more mobile families may be more stressed http://bit.ly/BKyXv
  
  
• Women on tamoxifen who were also taking Paxil, Prozac, or Zoloft were twice as likely to have their cancer recur http://bit.ly/p8uJq
  
  
• Risk-Scoring Systems Predict Incident Diabetes Mellitus in U.S. Adults Age 45 to 64 Years http://bit.ly/jFmPY
  
  
• Heart rate reduction associated with the survival benefit of beta-blockers in heart failure, dose of -blocker is not http://bit.ly/8qfbY
  
  
• New developments in the diagnosis of fibromyalgia syndrome: Say goodbye to tender points? http://bit.ly/r3mVG
  
  
• CCJM IM Board Review: A 72-year-old man with a purpuric rash http://bit.ly/wYluI

Image source: OpenClipArt.org, public domain.

Dangers of social media: "Twitter Your Way to Getting Robbed"

From Mashable:

"Going out of town? Most of us who tweet have been known to share that little tidbit of news with our followers, especially if that out of town journey is to a conference or event where we’re likely to meet other Twitterers. Well, you might want to rethink those tweets about your vacay away from home."


Dangers of social media: "Twitter Your Way to Getting Robbed"

References:
Twitter Your Way to Getting Robbed. Jennifer Van Grove.
Video: the troublesome side of social media: Real life Facebook on BBC http://bit.ly/FfAWK

Health News of the Day

Health News of the Day is a daily summary made from the selected links I post on Twitter. It is in a bullet points format with links to the original sources which include 350 RSS feeds that produce about 2,500 items per day.

• Residents’ participation in research activity associated with higher levels of satisfaction with residency training http://bit.ly/ynX8K
  
  
• Study: Frequent copying and pasting of examinations within the electronic medical record http://bit.ly/6trNs
  
  
• Plastic surgeon describes body fat as "liquid gold" - transferring fat to more "desirable areas" http://bit.ly/hdZ94
  
  
• Study: Young Ballerinas Face Heart, Bone Risks due to too few calories, too much exertion http://bit.ly/4gWmzf
  
  
• "Another Doctor Live-Blogs A Malpractice Trial" http://bit.ly/Q9riz and http://bit.ly/yWFN4
  
  
• HelloHealth offering "health insurance for small firms - pay as little as you want"... http://bit.ly/RNFdx
  
  
• Bad news: 50% of physicians indicated that they use Wikipedia as their source for medical information. http://is.gd/K9XG

Image source: OpenClipArt.org, public domain.

Video: How to Use Twitter in the Classroom

The Twitter Experiment - UT Dallas.

Dr. Rankin, professor of History at UT Dallas, wanted to know how to reach more students and involve more people in class discussions both in and out of the classroom. She and her students describe the impact of Twitter on the didactic process.

Last year, another teacher from the same university talked how he had used Twitter:


David Parry, a professor at the University of Texas at Dallas, talks about using Twitter for his courses.

References:
Video: Teaching With Twitter
How One Teacher Uses Twitter in the Classroom. Marshall Kirkpatrick.

Assistant professor uses Twitter to teach students dental anatomy at Ohio State University - 113 of 200 students signed up, 56% http://goo.gl/jvyq7

Selection of My Twitter Favorites, Edition 65

Twitter is a microblogging service where people answer the question "What are you doing?" via 140-character messages from their cellphone, laptop or desktop. You can select the messages (called "tweets") that you find interesting, useful, amusing, or disagreeable. Here is the 65th edition of My Twitter Favorites (the oldest post is at the bottom, the newest at the top): Micro-blogging on Twitter is easy, fun and can be very useful and educational if you follow/subscribe to interesting people. You can read more here: A Doctor's Opinion: Why I Started Microblogging on Twitter and visit my account at Twitter/AllergyNotes.

1. jensmccabe My peers and I will probably never retire, we'll just work ourselves into immobility or dementia or both. 8:12 PM May 28th from web
   
   
2. jensmccabe I'm already resigning myself to the fact that although I've paid into Social Security since age 14, I will never see a penny. 8:11 PM May 28th from web
   
   
3. problogger I really shouldn't put my medical problems on Twitter, the array of diagnosis I just got was amazing/overwhelming :-) thanks though everyone 7:50 PM May 28th from Tweetie
   
   
4. doc_rob Just spent $600 on the cat. Short of breath. Possible feline asthma. I hope he's not allergic to human dander. 7:18 PM May 28th from TweetDeck
   
   
5. hjluks New patient today. Was tweeting on iPhone, fell down stairs and broke their ankle. Pls tweet while sitting!!! 5:26 PM May 28th from Tweetie
   
   
6. kcb704 @PassionMD I agree. If you listen long enough, patients will tell you what is wrong with them. 3:41 PM May 28th from web in reply to PassionMD
   
   
7. pkedrosky My current favorite academic synonym for "I don't know" is "possible multivariate causality".11:24 AM May 28th from TwitterFon
   
   
8. shelisrael I would probably like the Genius Bar better if it were called "Customer Service." Something abot "genius" that makes me go, "Oh Yeah?" 11:04 AM May 28th from web
   
   
9. progressnotes Trimmed my nails while walking from the parking lot to the hospital. I've become a multitasking machine. 9:43 AM May 28th from Nambu
   
   
10. progressnotes He also talked about our "obesigenic" environment. Obesigenic. I love it. 10:58 PM May 27th from web
    
    
11. progressnotes I heard a pediatrician refer to childhood obesity as "thriving to fail" (i.e., the opposite of "failure to thrive"). 10:54 PM May 27th from web
    
    
12. AllergyNotes Dr. Gupta started posting XR/CT/MRIs of his cases weekly - good educational value, he needs a separate blog than CNN's "Paging Dr. Gupta" http://is.gd/HKxc9:00 PM May 27th from TweetDeck
    
    

The inclusion of a Twitter update (tweet) in Selection of My Twitter Favorites does not represent endorsement or agreement of any kind.

If you are included in this post but you would like to have your tweet removed for any reason, please email me and will comply with your request the same day.

First NEJM article about Web 2.0 use in medicine? Harnessing the Web for Public Health Surveillance

From the NEJM:

"The Internet has become a critical medium for clinicians, public health practitioners, and laypeople seeking health information. Data about diseases and outbreaks are disseminated not only through online announcements by government agencies but also through informal channels, ranging from press reports to blogs to chat rooms to analyses of Web searches.

More recently, the advent of openly available news aggregators and visualization tools has spawned a new generation of disease-surveillance "mashups" (Web application hybrids) that can mine, categorize, filter, and visualize online intelligence about epidemics in real time.

The ease of use of blogs, mailing lists, RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds, and freely available mapping technology has meant that even an individual expert can create an important global resource."

References:
Digital Disease Detection — Harnessing the Web for Public Health Surveillance. NEJM, Volume 360:2153-2157 May 21, 2009 Number 21.
Influenza A (H1N1) Virus, 2009 — Online Monitoring. NEJM, Volume 360:2156 May 21, 2009 Number 21.
Image in the public domain.