Do you think that medical providers should prescribe diabetes-specific online social networking, like TuDiabetes.org to patients? Why or why not?
I absolutely think they SHOULD, but I don’t think they ever WILL, because they would be too afraid that we might be giving medical advice, and that they might get sued if something went wrong.
They do in the UK but as far as I am aware they do not for diabetes. There is a series of books on things like depression, bulimia, overeating, stress etc that the doctors prescribe and you can get them in the libraries whether you are a member or not and there are usually a lot of them in the library.
They do not tend to recommend diabetes ones - I found Tu quite by chance. I guess they do not know about what is available - and there are a lot. I think they are good - to a degree, but there are so many sites nowadays and probably more being set up as I write, and from what I have seen sometimes advice etc can be conflicting.
As I have said, the downside is advice sometimes is conflicting, particularly about carbs - some say eat slow acting carbs, others say do not eat any carbs … Also the downside wtih any kind of website, whether diabetes or other illnesses is there is a danger of people self diagnosing wrongly and either treating themselves without recourse to a doctor or frightening themselves witless!
With any site the sensible thing to do is to weigh up what you read and discard the flakey bits.
I really like the idea of doctors prescribing social media sites…but I think that Natalie is right when she says that many are afraid to because we might receive medical advice outside of their office.
I also think that many doctors are unaware of the benefits of sites like TuDiabetes and Facebook when it comes to our diabetes management.
Unfortunately too many people don’t have any common sense and believe everything they read, so I doubt they would ever recommend social media.
I think that they should, but I don’t think most of them will. Besides the sue factor, doctors are too egotistical. When what they want you to do doesn’t work, they like to blame you as non-compliant. When you get help online that actually works, that makes them look bad.
I hate to think where I would be today with the DOC. I wish everyone knew about it.