My topic for I-Search is at best unconventional but I knew the challenge would be worth it because of the possible impact it could have on my health. The blessing is that information to my questions is so readily available on the web the real task was sorting through the garbage. Also, I have ready access to healthcare professionals and now that I know what questions to ask (online research), I am able to get very useful information.
I finally decided to break down my research question by question. Unlike most I-Search topics I’m not trying to build an airplane or find the best pet for my family. I am taking a topic that causes me a lot of grief in life (migraines), and using the information I gather to hopefully reduce the affects of migraines in my life. I am trying to learn all I can about certain aspects of the topic so I can figure out a game plan to deal with it.
In short I took each question and began Googling key words in the question. This approach led me to more information than I thought would ever be out there. I have been seeing doctors for decades about my migraines and learned more in five minutes of online research than I had all my life. It’s much more useful information than the medical manuals offer and it’s easy to understand. I am very cautious to use medically viable online sources... just like with anything, anyone can publish misinformation online.
In addition, I am conducting an interview with a recent graduate of Parker College of Chiropractic to get a better understanding from a professional’s point of view and bounce some of the online information I've gathered off him. I’ve worked in a chiropractic office for six years and have received helpful treatment but have never asked why and how it works.
My last stop was to the medical library in the chiropractic office where I work. The online information and the interview gave me the information I needed to zero in on a book and and a journal article with useful information to my search for understanding.
Overall I am very pleased there was so much information available online because it allowed me to expand my questions as I went and morph my project into something that will be very useful for me for years to come. I am now facing the task of wading through and paring down the wealth of compiled data. It’s all extremely useful to me but not all applicable to the I-Search.
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4 comments:
This is nicely done and pushes a little further into the philosophy of searching than I ususally see, so, let me ask, what standard do you use to divide the information from the misinformation?
I look for a site that is sponsored or hosted by a reputable organization, or recommended/quoted in a medical texts I come across.
Some of the whimsy sites are still useful for things like possible treatments. It never hurts to try out new things unless of course there is some level of danger to them.
It's also useful to hear different people's experience with migraines. So little is known with difinity it's nice to glean info from migraineurs. I trust the drug company sights to provide info beneficial to them but taken as such that is useful as well
Librarians will get all solemn and tell you that there are sites whose information is always reliable--they sometimes mention government sites like NIH. It always makes me laugh that people who would never trust the government on a whole range of issues suddenly go all soft over NIH, as if it has not had its share of scandals over the years....
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