SUNDRE – People with health concerns should be skeptical about information they come across on social media and be sure to book an appointment with a health-care provider to ask questions, a local doctor says.
Dr. Michelle Warren, a past president of the Alberta Medical Association and Sundre physician who works at the Myron Thompson Health Centre’s emergency room, said pursuing unproven treatments can lead to deteriorated conditions or worse.
Warren, who also owns and operates the Moose and Squirrel Medical Clinic alongside husband Dr. Rob Warren, spoke with the Albertan in response to research recently released by the Canadian Medical Association regarding the proliferation of health misinformation in Canada.
A survey conducted earlier this year shed light on a growing trend that has resulted in increasing numbers of Canadians encountering health misinformation which has by extension caused direct consequences on health outcomes.
Canadians highly susceptible to misinformation
It found that 43 per cent of Canadians are highly susceptible to believing misinformation while another 35 per cent are moderately susceptible, with the ramifications being the greater cause for concern as 35 per cent of Canadians say they’ve avoided effective health treatments due to false information, up six per cent from 2024.
However, the survey’s results seem to stand in stark contrast with the finding that Canadians by and large have maintained faith in their physicians, at 80 per cent.
“It just reflects what we’re seeing in our everyday practices,” Warren said during an interview.
“Even here in Alberta, we’re seeing lots of reliance on what you find on social media,” she said, adding “some information sites are really good, and others are really not.”
The disconcerting trend is certainly not new in the internet age but has especially increased since the COVID-19 pandemic when people were spending more time than ever scrolling social media feeds and trying to inform themselves.
“We’re seeing so much more of it since 2020,” she said.
Risk of alternative therapies
This has translated into patients later “presenting with conditions that are far more serious than they would have been had they come in early, because they’ve attempted other therapies,” she said.
In some instances, patients with more serious conditions such as cancers are opting for treatments they’ve found on the internet, resulting in progression of the disease, she said.
“I’ve seen lots of patients in 26 years of practice try alternative therapies, and it’s never worked – they’ve all passed away.”
Yet the doctor fully supports a patient’s right to make their own choices.
“But it needs to be informed. They need to understand the risks and the benefits, because they’re the ones ultimately that are going to be living with the consequences of their choices, no matter what it is.”
Unfortunately, there seems to be an increasing reliance on social media that is permeated with unreliable information that can lead people astray, she said.
“It’s a struggle,” she said. “It’s hard to fight the internet.”
Physician access also a factor
Nevertheless, Warren understands that people will in the absence of readily accessible health-care providers – itself another major factor – turn to whatever source of information is available to them.
“Part of the issue is, if you don’t have access to a health-care provider to be able to go in with your questions … what do you do? You’re going to use the resources that you do have, whether it’s the internet or Google.”
However, many people “don’t know the difference between a good research study versus just word of mouth.”
There is no shortage of unfounded remedies that for example pitch weight loss pills or detox drinks that pop up in people’s social media feeds, and it’s important to help those who are looking at such information learn how to understand and interpret it.
“Usually my rule of thumb is if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is,” she said. “And I think that’s just common sense.”
While she cautions people away from using social media as a source of information, Warren instead directs them towards legitimate sites to help patients navigate the sea of misinformation.
But if someone stumbles upon a treatment or remedy on the internet, she encourages them to talk to their provider about it.
“I have patients that will drop information off at the clinic, or they’ll email me and say, ‘I found this thing and I want you to look into it. Tell me what you think about it,’” she said.
“We are learning in medicine all the time and a lot of our current treatments have come from the plant world. But it’s been very rigorously tested and studied.”
So Warren urges anyone with concerns or questions to seek out the advice of a health-care professional.
Canadians mostly confident in their doctors
“If you have a relationship with your patients and they know you and develop that trust, then I think you can have really good conversations,” she said.
“I really encourage my patients to come in and if they want to try alternative therapies for whatever the condition is, we have really good conversations around it,” she said.
“At the end of the day, I support them to do what it is they wish to do. But I just need to make sure they understand the potential consequences of their decisions.”
Although having access to a provider is crucial, trust also remains a factor, said Warren, who on occasion has heard some people claim doctors are in the pockets of pharmaceutical companies.
“We’re not even allowed to get a lunch from a pharmaceutical company,” she said. “We have very, very strict rules about engagement with companies that could influence treatment decisions, and for that reason.”
But more often than not, she believes Canadians tend to “trust their doctors or their health-care professionals when they can get in to see them.”
Guiding patients on their “health-care journey”
Asked how to address misinformation and build up public confidence in organizations such as the Alberta Medical Association and the Canadian Medical Association, she said, “One of the things that we try to do within our own clinic is we try to post links to good sites for information.”
Warren is encouraged by those who actively seek to be informed about their well-being.
“I like patients to be engaged in their health. I like it when they take the initiative to learn about the conditions and concerns that they have, because when people are engaged, they’re more likely to follow through,” she said.
“I always tell people your health-care journey starts at birth and ends in death … we’re not getting out of it, but each of us gets to kind of lead our health-care journey.”
At their clinic, Warren said the team supports each patient’s journey and offers professional opinions while along the way helping people develop lifestyle plans under the guiding principle of prevention.
“At the end of the day though, you still have to do it – you have to do the exercise, you have to change your diet, you have to take medication, if that’s what it is, or do the screening,” she said.
“Ultimately, they have to make that decision.”
