1. Physicians may not agree on the medical condition causing the symptoms the patient presents.
2. Even if physicians agree on their diagnoses, they often do not agree on the efficacy of alternative responses — for example, surgery or medical management for lower-back pain.
3. The reason patients seek advice and treatment is that they expect physicians to have vastly superior knowledge about the proper diagnosis and efficacy of treatment.
4. Medicine proceeds on the basis of double blind trials and other small field experiments. Control and treatment groups are used before any treatment is applied widely.
5. Medicine is not perfect as was the case with the misdiagnosis of the causes of stomach ulcers.
6. The lag between cause and effect are short as would be the case if you rejected emergency treatment after a car accident or cancer treatment.
7. Medicine tests the efficacy of invasive treatments, weighs side-effects and encourages adaptation and prevention.
8. The staying power of self-interest in medicine is well-known: much higher rates of surgery when there is fee for service and much lower rates of surgery if the patient is a doctor or his partner. The efforts of the medical profession to suppress competition is well-known.
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
Recent Comments