You Can Search For Anything on Google

chillibreeze writer — Ganesh Balasubramaniam

Though I have been working as a medical transcriptionist for over five years, it was only recently that I discovered Google. Part of the reason was that it took long for it to be introduced in the office where I worked. Till then, we had to do with conventional reference sources, usually outdated American books xeroxed and bound in thick volumes. The other reason was being 40+ you didn’t really cotton on quickly to stuff about computers. So I let it be, till Google changed my life. I remember I came across the doctor dictating something like this: “The patient is going to get her ears pierced for smoking.” Does that make any sense to you? Neither did it to me. But there was no mistaking it, the voice was very clear. I went to the editor and told her about it. She scratched her head and said, “Try looking for it on Google.” So I sauntered across to the only computer in the office hooked to the Internet and gingerly did a search. I keyed in “ears + smoking + pierce”. In a jiffy, I got an entry, which said ‘acupuncture cures smoking’. I put two and two together and figured it out. The patient was going in for an acupuncture treatment to quit smoking. I crosschecked and found that there were loads of sites about acupuncture and smoking. Thus began my affair with Google and what fun it’s been!

I have become a Google junkie. When the doctor dictated Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, something I had not come across till then, I did not get up to lift a dusty dog-eared xeroxed book, I just logged in to Google and it was there. Everything I ever wanted to know about Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome. It’s not just diseases. Suppose the doctor dictates the name of the neighborhood the patient lives in. Not to worry. Look up cities and towns under that state and you’ll get it. Or the name of a doctor in another hospital. Type in his name + MD and you’ll track him down. I found that on an average, I use Google every 10 minutes. It became even more frequent when I was transcribing business conference calls. The CEO might say something like, “Our new branch in Questa did very well last quarter.” It will just take you a minute to find out that Questa is a town in New Mexico. Or that Gramm Leach Bliley is an accounting act.

What really bowled me over was when we were planning a car ride to Mysore. I remember reading years ago in ‘The Hindu’ that there was a temple somewhere on the Bangalore-Mysore highway with an image of the baby Krishna holding butter in his hand. I hadn’t a clue to where it was. It was back to trusty Google again. I keyed in “crawling + butter + Krishna + Bangalore + Mysore”. Bingo! The search threw up the temple name with exact location: Doddamallur. What’s more, there was even a website of the temple. When I stood there in the temple in front of the image of the infant Krishna, I couldn’t help thinking of Google.

That is the power of Google as I know it. I haven’t a clue as to how it works but this much I can say: It’s like an instant trip to a well-stocked, up-to-date library without moving out of your chair. You can search for just about anything on Google. Even if it sounds as crazy as getting your ears pierced for smoking!

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Ganesh writes for chillibreeze.

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