Diagnosing means to identify a person with sickness, or anything of the same nature, through symptoms. One can get diagnosed through a doctor, but others simply just diagnose themselves.

Self-diagnosing can be done by looking up the symptoms a person is experiencing on the internet, or just diagnosing oneself through past symptoms. The internet can provide different illnesses a person could be having, from there one can look up and get the medication they will need to treat themselves, which reduces unnecessary visits to the doctor.

Kimberly Ngo, junior, says self-diagnosing is “appropriate for minor things like headaches, or stomach pain, or allergies.”

Cynthia Williams, junior, adds on and says, “you don’t want to self-diagnose with stuff that’s serious… let’s say someone has the flu or something, and you have the same symptoms, and you’re experiencing the same things as others or before, you can then self-diagnose.”

In medical diagnosis, a patient will tell their doctor their symptoms and complaints, where a doctor will then diagnose the patient and can then prescribe medication that fits their category. Getting medically diagnosed is a safer way of diagnosing because a doctor is trained and is familiar with the work being done.

Ngo believes that a person should get medically diagnosed when “[a person’s] symptoms last for a prolonged amount of time.”

Leslie De Leon, junior, argues that the dangers of self-diagnosing include tricking “your brain to believe certain stuff, so the more you tell yourself that you’re diagnosed with something you will think it’s true.”