Doctor Whodunit→

The road to self-diagnosis is paved with temptations: the ubiquity of information, the desire for instant answers, the inconvenience of finding and getting to the right doctor at the right time, the belief that we can help that friend, family member or co-worker with a little well-meant or perhaps vicarious research, the need to make the most of that hard-to-get appointment, the list goes on and on. But add to all that this self-evident truth: for some of us, it’s an irresistible challenge, otherwise known as fun. This is a reader behavior The New York Times has been on to for quite some time. Structured like a well crafted miniature detective story, the Diagnosis feature of the Sunday Magazine took a new twist last year in partnership with Netflix: real-time unsolved medical mysteries that invite readers to beat doctors to accurate diagnosis, upping the stakes for all involved. Good, bad or indifferent diagnosticians, readers have embraced the call to “think like a doctor.”