Next time you go see your doctor, ask him a tough question.

Like, what are cuticles made of?

And watch what they do.

They might scratch their chin thoughtfully, or maybe they'll find some excuse to leave the room and go look it up online.

The internet changed everything.

Back in medical school when we needed answers, we had to, actually, I don't even remember.

It was so long ago.

I do remember we had big piles of heavy textbooks.

It was so depressing.

We couldn't even lift all the things we were supposed to learn.

I still have a shelf of medical textbooks next to my desk, although some of them are from 1997.

I know that sounds bad, but some things never change.

We still have the same number of kidneys or tonsils unless some surgery was involved.

Now we don't need all those heavy books.

Too bad that was like the only exercise I got.

Some doctors could use more muscle mass anyway.

Now we’ll be like sea anemones with really strong typing fingers.

But lots of medical stuff does change.

Almost daily.

New medicines pop up.

New research proves that some solid, hard facts you learned in dical school are now exactly 100% wrong.

Sorry, fish oil doesn't work and you don't really lose half your body heat through your head.

Of course, patients think, why couldn't I just look up things on the internet myself?

Because you'd need to know how to spell words like eosinophilic esophagitis.

Plus, even if you know which medicine you need, you'd still need a prescription.

Unless you can whip up a batch of amiodarone in your kitchen.

The other question is when will AI take over medicine and make doctors obsolete?

Judging by the AI material currently on the internet, mostly computer altered photos of Ginger and Maryann, I think we're probably okay for a while.

In the meantime, I've still got my old textbooks.

They remind me of medical school, a time when we had to remember everything, take tests every Saturday morning, get tortured by pompous doctors on hospital rounds.

Actually, now that I'm thinking about it, I'm stopping at the recycling center tomorrow.