I had a really scary experience with a patient

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I’m a dentist, and I want to document an experience I had with a patient recently, and let other people know some important things to consider about healthcare.

The patient originally came in because they noticed something in their mouth and asked me whether it could be X. I explained that X usually doesn’t present as Y, and based on what I was seeing clinically, it looked much more like Z to me.

I told them that I didn’t see anything that made me particularly concerned at that point, but that we should monitor it. I asked them to come back in around three weeks, or sooner if pain got worse or if they developed any other new symptoms.

Fast forward to about a week later.

They come back with a friend and a family member, despite having no new symptoms whatsoever.

I asked them why they had decided to come in early, and they pulled out their phone and showed me a screenshot from Google. Apparently, they had searched X and found that a variant of X can occur as Y....