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Surprising Science

Crowdsource Health Consultations

“Debunking the myth of the lone maverick, health researchers suggest that groups of doctors outperform individuals not only in diagnosing problems but also in treating them.”
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“It may be hard to get hordes of doctors to give you their personal attention, but you can often do the next best thing: Find out how hordes of doctors would help someone with a problem just like yours. In fact, the federal government and various groups like the American Academy of Pediatrics convene huge panels of experts to address medical issues all the time. These expert panels put out an electronic call for the world’s medical literature on a problem — often including dozens if not hundreds of studies — and then attempt to consolidate the medical wisdom. To date, such entities have crowdsourced 2,527 problems.”

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