Practicing physicians like me rely on scientific medical journals to keep us current on medical developments. We learn about new treatments for old diseases. New diagnostic tests are presented as alternatives to existing methods. Established treatments, which are regarded as dogma, may be shown to be less effective or less safe than originally believed. It’s a confusing intellectual morass to sort among complex and conflicting studies some of which reach opposite conclusions in the same medical journal. What’s a practicing physician to do? While the medical journals that physicians read are fundamental to our education, paradoxically most physicians have only rudimentary training in properly analyzing and assessing these studies. For example, the quality of medical studies often depends upon statistical analysis, a mathematical field that is foreign to most practicing physicians. Doctors like me hope that our peer-reviewed journal editors have done their due diligence
MD Whistleblower presents vignettes and commentaries on the medical profession. We peek 'behind the medical curtain' and deliver candor and controversy in every post.