By Tim Christie
The Register-Guard
Doctors, for the most part, know what they're doing, or in the alternative, act like they know what they're doing.
No one wants to be seen by a fumbling, hesitant doctor, after all. They're the experts in the white lab coats with 10 years of medical training and the M.D. after their names.
So when the doctor walks into the exam room, we expect a thorough examination, an authoritative diagnosis, reassuring answers and a deftly scribbled prescription.
But doctors have been keeping a secret from their patients: Sometimes they don't know what they're doing. Sometimes they recommend a treatment not because there's a rock-solid foundation of medical evidence behind it, but because they think it works based on their experience and what they hear from other doctors.
"Unfortunately, for a good percentage of what we do in medicine, there isn't good evidence," said Dr. Lorne Bigley, a family physician at River Road Medical Group. "There isn't literature to support a lot of things we do."
That's why a growing number of doctors, nurses and researchers are changing the way they think about and practice medicine by seeking out drugs and treatments that are proven to work through randomized controlled trials.
Read More...The Register Guard
Posted by gruwell at December 20, 2004 12:15 PM | TrackBack