Medical mysteries have always been a subject of both interest and excitement for the TV audience. Be it Grey’s Anatomy, House, Nurse Jackie, or The Resident, medical dramas manage to beat out every other genre of entertainment for ever now.
Although such shows might be great for entertainment purposes, they can be a bit too dicey for real-life. At least, a few of them. Let’s take a look at how some of the latest medical shows are causing a stir not only in the world of entertainment but for real-time practitioners as well.
What is all the fuss about?
Netflix’s “Diagnosis” and “Chasing the Cure” on TNT/TBS have triggered the age-old adage “What’s ailing me, doc?” by implementing “crowdsourcing” for diagnosing an individual’s ailments from unknown sources.
While they may vary in terms of format, style, and even tone, both Chasing the Cure and Diagnosis run on the same lines i.e. Crowdsourced Diagnosis, with the basic assumption of finding an answer for patients through standard medical practices and putting their cases across to a wider audience.
Besides, almost every patient has been featured facing some or the other financial crisis along with their medical condition.
Current real-time hurdles
Although neither of the shows have put the American healthcare ecosystem in a bad light, they do underline the possible threats that occur due to chronic health problems and the way insufficient resources can result in more stress for the patients.
Interestingly, the two shows also premiered within a week’s span of each other. Besides, their arrival did happen when the American healthcare industry was facing lashes for mistrust of certain medical establishments, negative views on the ecosystem, and the use of crowdfunding platforms like GoFundMe for healthcare funding.
Especially “Diagnosis” features how crowdsourced diagnosis is taking over its traditional counterpart. Nevertheless, crowdsourced diagnosis emerges out to be the main villain for these shows.
What is crowdsourced diagnosis?
Crowdsourcing has been around for a while now. It is nothing but an online platform wherein the patients are provided with a web tool to upload details about their medical condition. From there, the so-called “medical detectives” take on and work upon the case by communicating among themselves as well as the patient.
Patients need to render certain fees to have their health condition reviewed online by these medical detectives, who sometimes may or may not be knowledgeable enough. Most of the times, the responses are based on algorithmic assessments and crowd opinion — which may not always be the way most medical practitioners will diagnose a medical condition.
The key aim of crowdsourcing is to ‘democratize data’ so that patients avoid time wastage, possible wastage of money too, and locate and find the apt diagnosis.
The bottomline
Although it may sound easier and quicker, crowdsourced diagnosis may neither be good nor ethical alternative over traditional diagnosis. Giving out patient’s health data is way too critical, but the shows do promote otherwise. It is high time medical practitioners look deeper into the deficiencies in the healthcare delivery systems so that the ethical concerns as may be present in crowdsourced diagnosis may be avoided. For patients too, it may currently pose a cost-and-time-effective alternative, but how far can it go to replace a registered doctor’s diagnosis is yet to be seen.
