Hypocrisy : The practice of professing beliefs, feelings, or virtues that one does not hold or possess; falseness. Which of the following medical tests or procedures do physicians commonly recommend, but state they would never accept themselves? (1) Cardiac catheterization (2) Screening colonoscopy (3) Feeding tube placement (4) PSA screening for prostate cancer (5) Hip replacement surgery Answer appears at the post’s end. Last week, I was asked by a primary care physician to place a feeding tube in an NNHP, a nonagenarian nursing home patient. The patient had a panoply of active medical issues, and was at the end of life. The feeding tube was advised because the patient’s swallowing function was impaired and he was, therefore, at risk for pneumonia if he ate. These swallowing evaluations are generally performed by speech pathologists, whom I have found to be dedicated and competent professionals. As an aside, they often uncover swallowing defects that suggest that eating
MD Whistleblower presents vignettes and commentaries on the medical profession. We peek 'behind the medical curtain' and deliver candor and controversy in every post.