jason
Have a great day
At times I feel like I'm practicing medicine in a tunnel, one where the only way out is to prescribe pharmaceuticals that have gone through double-blind, placebo-controlled trials. Modern medicine has brought us many wonderful advances -- and, believe me, I understand that controlled trials are important -- but what about the art of medicine?
Have we forgotten about the many modes of healing at our fingertips? And what about the individuality of each patient? The reality is that what happens in a laboratory or in a clinical trial is not always what we see in practice every day. Besides, the data we read in scientific journals may not even be reported accurately. I recently read Sherri Tenpenny, M.D.'s blog on fraudulent medical research, where she discusses researchers making up results and publishing them in prestigious medical journals. Yet we base so much medical advice on what this research reports.
I'm charging all of us to demand more from our health care providers. And for those of us working in the health care industry, step back for a moment and take an inventory of all that you know, inside and outside medical research. What have your patients taught you? What have you learned in your life? What studies have you read and put into practice that have made a difference? There is wisdom here that we've overlooked, and I think it's about time we come back to our black bags, our medicine chests and apothecaries, and take an inventory of all the tools we've been collecting.
more Marcelle Pick, OB-GYN N.P.: What Happened To The Art Of Medicine?
Have we forgotten about the many modes of healing at our fingertips? And what about the individuality of each patient? The reality is that what happens in a laboratory or in a clinical trial is not always what we see in practice every day. Besides, the data we read in scientific journals may not even be reported accurately. I recently read Sherri Tenpenny, M.D.'s blog on fraudulent medical research, where she discusses researchers making up results and publishing them in prestigious medical journals. Yet we base so much medical advice on what this research reports.
I'm charging all of us to demand more from our health care providers. And for those of us working in the health care industry, step back for a moment and take an inventory of all that you know, inside and outside medical research. What have your patients taught you? What have you learned in your life? What studies have you read and put into practice that have made a difference? There is wisdom here that we've overlooked, and I think it's about time we come back to our black bags, our medicine chests and apothecaries, and take an inventory of all the tools we've been collecting.
more Marcelle Pick, OB-GYN N.P.: What Happened To The Art Of Medicine?
