[avgDev]

If my doctor is googling he is doing his job.

He has medical knowledge which allows him to sort through information.

Any developer who doesn't google today is hindering his ability to develop and slowing the development process. Just like the dev cannot hold all the algorithms and language caveats/syntax in his head, a physician cannot hold all the information in his brain. He may not be familiar with symptoms or might be googling to see if there is anything "new" as pertaining to a patients specific issue.

There was a time steroid injections were the go to for tendon injuries, recently science came out that it results in worse long term outcomes and PT should be the first line treatment.

[CuriouslyC]

I would find it suspect if my specialist was googling unless I had something really weird going on, and might consider going to a different specialist.

[ceejayoz]

If they're a neurologist and Googling "what does brain do", sure.

If they're searching up safety data on a slightly-over-recommended dose for a particular medication (like, say, a gastric bypass patient who takes an oral med that's not absorbed as much as in a person with a normal stomach), I'd much prefer they be certain than guess.

[SkyPuncher]

I still routinely Google some things that "I should know" when doing software development. Despite being already correct 99% of the time, an internet search helps with two things:

* Presenting potentially new information or methods of doing something. My "old" knowledge might still be correct, but a "new" method may have optimizations or benefits.

* Even though, I'm already 99% correct, it's not worth the hassle of being wrong the 1% of the time - especially when the solution is 20 seconds of internet search.