Webdoctor: My Midnight Lifeline
Webdoctor: My Midnight Lifeline
Rain lashed against the Belfast hotel window as I curled tighter on the stiff mattress, knuckles white around my phone. That searing pain below my ribs had returned with vengeance - not the dull ache from airport hauling, but a stabbing rhythm that stole my breath. Every inhale felt like glass shards. 3:17 AM glowed in the darkness. Home was 200 miles away, my GP asleep, A&E a taxi ride through unfamiliar streets where I'd be just another tourist clutching Google Translate. Then I remembered the blue icon buried in my apps.
Fumbling past sleep-blurred eyes, I tapped Webdoctor. No forms, no insurance labyrinths - just three brutal questions: "Where does it hurt worst?" "Rate your pain." "Can you point to it?" My trembling finger circled the fire beneath my right lung. Within 90 seconds - timed by my panicked pulse - Dr. Siobhan's face filled the screen, her lamp-lit living room radiating calm. "Show me where, love," she said, her Cork lilt slicing through my isolation. As I lifted my shirt, her gaze sharpened. "Breathe in... now out slowly. Again." Each instruction landed like an anchor.
Here's where tech became tangible: When I winced during deep breaths, her camera zoomed autonomously on my flinching diaphragm. Later she explained this was AI-assisted symptom tracking - algorithms detecting micro-expressions I couldn't verbalize. "Right," she murmured, typing notes only half-visible on my end. "Not your gallbladder. This is costochondritis - rib inflammation. Aggravated by your flight and that heavy case, am I right?" My weak nod triggered her prescription pad. "I'm sending codeine gel to Boots on Donegall Place - opens at 8. But listen closely..." Her next words saved me from panic: "If you feel any stabbing when swallowing, call 999 immediately. Not Webdoctor. Understood?"
Dawn found me slumped in Boots' waiting area, gel cooling the inferno. The pharmacist scanned my QR prescription - another seamless integration - no explanations needed. As relief seeped in, so did fury. Why did it take crisis to discover this? That slick interface hid brutal truths: No continuity of care. No access to my UK records. Just brilliant, transient humans patching leaks in a broken system. Later, reviewing the session recording (automatically encrypted), I spotted what I'd missed live - Dr. Siobhan's own exhaustion, the tremor in her coffee hand between patients. We're all just people in little glowing rectangles.
Keywords:Webdoctor,news,remote healthcare,emergency consultation,AI diagnostics