When doctors 'Google' their patients

I remember when I first looked up a patient on Google. It was my last day on the bone marrow transplant unit, back when I was an intern. As I stood before the patient, taking her history, she told me she had been a painter and suggested I look up her work on the Internet. I did, and I found her paintings fascinating. Even though our paths crossed fleetingly, she is one of the few patients I vividly remember from that time. Google has taught me other things, too, things that don't come up during the routine history-taking or medication checks of my usual doctor-patient interactions.