ALKHOBAR, 25 March 2008 — Journalists’ inboxes are inundated with hundreds of press releases daily. A quick press of the delete key is frequently the best way to deal with these often ridiculous missives. I will admit though that there are occasional press releases that are actually interesting and will result in a story. There are also press releases that are so outrageous that a respectable journalist must respond to them for fear that they will be considered truth if allowed to pass. Such releases tend to get picked up by search engines and data mining tools and in no time at all snippets from the releases are turned into supporting evidence in research papers and news reports.
This week I received just such a release from a website, AskMy Gyn.com. It was titled, “Increasing Numbers of Islamic Women Use Internet for Gynecologic Information” and subtitled, “Forty Percent of Hits on Gynecologic Health website Comes from Islamic Countries.” With that statement the press release had my full attention. It read:
“Baltimore, MD, March 20, 2008 — When a group of American gynecologists started a new website called AskMyGyn.com, they expected to provide an easy to use, comprehensive source of gynecologic information for women with questions about their health care. When women search the web for health information, they want reliable and up-to-date answers. They want quick answers, and they want to know about their own unique situation. So AskMyGyn.com was designed for today’s Internet health consumer. Information is available for free on hundreds of topics, everything written and reviewed by board certified gynecologists. But if you have a unique or personal question, you can submit it and get quick and complete answers directly from a physician.”
So far, the website didn’t sound like anything special — except perhaps that it focused on women’s health issues. Websites providing health information are nothing new and using the web to search for health information is widely acknowledged to be one of the most popular uses of the Internet. Time to read some more of that press release:
“After only two months online, AskMyGyn.com has quickly become a popular site, fielding numerous questions every day. But some intriguing and possibly disturbing trends became noticeable. Sure, AskMyGyn.com was fielding questions from women around the world, but the doctors noticed that many of these information seekers were logging on from very surprising places. As the traffic statistics indicated, approximately 40 percent of the visitors in the first month online were from countries like Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Kuwait and Iran.
‘”Is this a good thing or not?” asks Dr. Saul Weinreb, senior medical consultant of AskMyGyn.com. “Of course I’m happy that we can provide people with reliable information, but I’m concerned that these women may not have access to real health care providers.”’
The press release concluded, “The Internet can be a great place to learn about health issues, but when people use it to replace a visit to their health care provider they are taking a tremendous risk. Women need to feel comfortable discussing issues that may sometimes be embarrassing and uncomfortable. Sometimes one embarrassing detail, withheld from the health care provider because of shame and discomfort, can be the difference between life and death.”
The press release was shocking on many levels. I can’t speak for the women who may be accessing AskMyGyn.com from Malaysia, Kuwait and Iran, but in regards to Saudi Arabia, since I am actually living in Saudi Arabia, I do have a few points to make. I investigated AskMyGyn.com and found that the website is in English — not Arabic. It must be assumed then that the individuals accessing the site must either be Saudis educated enough to read English, or expatriates. In either case, these individuals have Internet access so they are not underprivileged, uneducated and living in remote villages in the Kingdom.
Dr. Weinreb, the senior medical consultant of AskMyGyn.com states that he is concerned that women accessing his site from Saudi Arabia might not have access to real health care providers. To put his mind at ease, let me point out that the latest UNDP Human Development Index (HDI) found that the Kingdom had 137 physicians for every 100,000 population. Overall, Saudi Arabia ranked 61 out of 177 nations in the HDI. Dr. Weinreb should be somewhat aware of the Kingdom’s development since he speaks Hebrew according to his online biography. Such a competence should give him more access to resources focusing on the Middle East than the average American. Thus he should have some understanding of the economic situation in Middle Eastern nations and their ability to provide health care to their populations.
I can’t be certain why individuals from Saudi Arabia would access the AskMyGyn website, but I did note that the site provides information in a very simplistic, brief manner, which might be attractive to health care consumers for whom English is a second language. The site’s information certainly can’t compare to what’s available at WedMD.com, iVillage.com or numerous other comprehensive health sites. However, because AskMyGyn.com allows women to ask a question rather than having to search for an answer, the site might be a good starting point for women unfamiliar with certain health issues. It should be noted that pregnancy, a common female heath condition, isn’t covered much at all at the site. That’s a definite drawback for Saudi women who have a high fertility rate of 3.8 births per woman.
There could be another point of attraction for women in the Kingdom to AskMyGyn.com — besides Dr. Weinreb’s idea that Saudi Arabia lacks “real health care providers.” Saudi Arabia does have a shortage of Saudi physicians, with the result that hundreds of expatriate physicians have been hired to work in hospitals and clinics in the Kingdom. English is the most common language spoken by all these foreign doctors — in fact it’s the most common language spoken by all physicians in Saudi Arabia.
“Before I go to the doctor I usually research my problem online,” said Saudi university student Sarah Illyas. “I spend a lot of time online so this is normal for me. When I come back from the clinic, again, I usually check what I’ve been told against what I find online. I almost always use English websites because I find them more detailed on scientific topics than Arabic websites — although that is improving. Plus my doctor speaks English, so the information she gives me is in English.”
Sarah commented that sometimes she has more questions after she does her follow-up health research using the Internet and in that case she returns to her doctor. Also, she might get a second opinion on her health condition if she questions the first doctor’s diagnosis based on information she reads online. The bottom line is that Sarah doesn’t use the Internet to replace her doctor, but rather to supplement the information she receives at the clinic.
The trend throughout the developed world is that soon Internet connectivity will be available to hospital patients at their bedsides so that they can research their illnesses and ask health care providers informed questions immediately. If a health website finds it’s receiving a high volume of traffic from a specific geography and it wants to encourage that traffic, it should try to determine what it’s doing right that is raising those visitor numbers. If it really isn’t interested in those visitors, then it puts out a press release similar to the one written by AskMyGyn.com.
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