Early this year, Dharmishtha Dagia felt a lump in her left arm. At first it wasn’t much of a bother, but soon it began to grow in size and very quickly it came to a point that if anything even slightly brushed against the growth, she felt a stabbing pain. 

The 35-year-old was soon recommended a few laparoscopic and endoscopic surgeons, and a deep dive on them ensued on the Internet. She went through their social media handles, and carefully reading each review on medical websites, going as far as to visit the profile of each reviewer to see if it was authentic or paid. “There are many paid websites where doctors have great reviews, but I never take them seriously,” says the Kandivili resident. “I trust Google reviews for unbiased ones. I check the doctors’ profiles on LinkedIn, Instagram, X (formerly, Twitter) and see the videos they share. If all this seems genuine, then and only then do I go for a consultation, like I did for my cyst surgery in my upper arm in August. Instead of going from one bad doctor to the other, where you can feel like a guinea pig as they pursue a trial-and-error diagnosis, the Internet points you in the direction of one—and most importantly—the right doctor.”