Why
do Doctors Use Treatments That Don't Work?
As Voltaire said, "The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient
while nature cures the disease." Or, in modern parlance: most drugs work
in only 30 percent or 50 percent of people. Because patients so often get
better or worse on their own, no matter what we do, clinical experience is a
poor judge of what does and does not work. Clinicians want to relieve
suffering. They find it difficult to do nothing (the aphorism "Don't just
do something, stand there!" seems ludicrous).
Reasons
for using ineffective or harmful treatments:
The
editorial poses the following question and dilemma:
"What
hope is there for not using treatments and tests that don't work? Medicine is
not just a science--it is a human activity. It entails ritual, custom and the
expectations of doctors, patients, and society. To safeguard against
ineffective or harmful health care we need doctors who want to do the best they
can for their patients, who are willing to continually question their own
managements, and who have readily available sources of information about what
does work."
Let
us hope that the traditional medical community is waking up to the truth
expressed in the above paragraph. My fear is that the brainwashing of the
drug-based paradigm is still far more powerful than the common sense approach
of natural medicine that addresses the cause of disease.
British
Medical Journal February 28, 2004;328:474-475 Full
Text Medical Journal
BACK TO HOME PAGE