Thanks for your comment - the purpose of this app is patient education rather than diagnosis but I will definitely have a look at the relevant stats in more detail!
The risk I think is that people will not understand that that is your goal, instead they will use it to help them diagnose something they might think is suspicious.
They will go through your images until they get a good score, believe themselves and expert and proceed to diagnose themselves (and their friends).
By the time you have an image set that is representative and that will actually educate people to the point where they know what to do and what not to do you've created a whole raft of amateur dermatologists. And the result of that will be that a lot of people are going to knock on the doors of real dermatologists who might tell them not to worry about something when they are now primed to argue with them.
I've seen this pattern before with self diagnosis.
So what? Are you arguing that ensuring patients have less information available about diseases leads to better outcomes? What's your take on public campaigns about self diagnosing mammary cancer by touch? (very common where I live)
As a patient I'd rather have more information available to me, even if I ultimately defer to specialists
A personal anecdote of mine was a friend that had abdominal pain for months. She had some comorbidities that made it easier for doctors to dismiss her symptoms. After visits to various doctors she only got adequate treatment because I went with her and advocated for her. After discarding multiple options eventually a renal infection was diagnosed and treated. If she went with the opinion of the first doctor she would still have the underlying condition untreated.
jacquesm|5 months ago
They will go through your images until they get a good score, believe themselves and expert and proceed to diagnose themselves (and their friends).
By the time you have an image set that is representative and that will actually educate people to the point where they know what to do and what not to do you've created a whole raft of amateur dermatologists. And the result of that will be that a lot of people are going to knock on the doors of real dermatologists who might tell them not to worry about something when they are now primed to argue with them.
I've seen this pattern before with self diagnosis.
nextaccountic|5 months ago
As a patient I'd rather have more information available to me, even if I ultimately defer to specialists
Also it's common for medical professionals to ignore symptoms of certain demographics - in those cases, enabling patients to advocate for themselves is essential https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/29/well/mind/medical-gasligh...
A personal anecdote of mine was a friend that had abdominal pain for months. She had some comorbidities that made it easier for doctors to dismiss her symptoms. After visits to various doctors she only got adequate treatment because I went with her and advocated for her. After discarding multiple options eventually a renal infection was diagnosed and treated. If she went with the opinion of the first doctor she would still have the underlying condition untreated.
thebeardisred|5 months ago
Pictures with purple circles (e.g. faded pen ink on light skin outlining the area of concern) are a strong indicator of cancer. :wink: