Real-life doctors are better than diagnosing yourself online, according to the most useful study of all time.

Finally, the ammunition you need to help that self-diagnosing doomsday friend step away from Dr Google is here.

Real-life doctors are more effective at diagnosing illnesses than a Google search.

I repeat, REAL-LIFE DOCTORS are more effective at diagnosing illnesses than a Google search.

And if you don’t take my underqualified word as authority, listen to the group of researchers from Harvard Medical School and Brigham Women’s Hospital researchers who confirmed this very finding in JAMA Internal Medicine this week.

Power to the people. Source: iStock. 

The research is truly inspiring.

Sending out 45 hypothetical patient vignettes that contained a medical history and list of symptoms to 234 physicians and 23 online symptom checkers, researchers found that even without luxuries like blood tests and urine samples, doctors were accurate in their diagnosis 72 per cent of the time.

Popular apps and online medical search sites had a success rate of just 34 per cent.

That's LESS THAN HALF the success rate that interacting with a human will offer you!

Scared they're going to say you're fine? Source: iStock. 

But even with this information now out there, it's unlikely people's love of self-diagnosing will ever die because doctors don't work in the middle of the night, and that's exactly when you need someone to confirm if that lump is an ingrown hair or herpes or a tiny alien growing slowly inside you.

Or if that scab on your ear is skin cancer or just a previously unknown cut healing.

Or if the pins and needles in one of your ten fingers is a sign you need to move around or actually a lurking symptom of diabetes.

Maybe you're feeling tired and losing lots of weight. While Dr Google may say leukaemia, it's likely your local GP will say it's just being a stressed out vegetarian.

Perhaps you've got a tummy ache, which could be Crohns, IBS, the imminent arrival of your period, or even just eating too much food.

Just go to the doctor, already. Source: iStock. 

Ever wondered what it means to scratch your skin and see it red? You've got meningococcal, obviously. It doesn't matter if it's just a hot day, just listen to the Google search.

And if you've been travelling through Asia of late, you can almost guarantee that tummy ache is a tapeworm.

And when your child complains of a sore stomach, don't think logical thoughts like "she's probably trying to get out maths because it's too boring". Go online and wonder if she'll need a kidney transplant. Then spend the night wondering whether either of your kidneys will be good enough for her.

Okay, they were all sarcastic jokes.

Stop going online for medical advice.

Just go and see your doctor already.