Dr. Drew and Brian Klimeade talk about evangelical doctors, those who believe in a particular treatment and stick with that when the science tends to point in another direction.
I've heard other folks talking about this in the past several weeks. Those well-meaning folks who thought they had the answers and put us on a course that proved disastrous, even as the science was evolving on an answer to a novel virus.
We've learned a lot since then. That masks don't work, that keeping kids out of school is a bad idea, that some vaccines don't provide protection and may do more harm than good. These evangelical doctors meant well, wanting to save humanity from disease. But as their diagnosis began to fly in the face of common sense, what they actually accomplished was to wreck the public confidence in the public health system.
This is common in the medical system and people suffer and die for it. I worked in kidney dialysis for over 26 years and here is one example. When kidneys fail there is a form of dialysis that uses the abdominal lining to replace the kidney. By starting with this type of dialysis the life of the patient is extended as a regular access can only be created a certain number of times. This abdominal dialysis can be done at home, overnight while sleeping and is easier on the body. One does not have to travel to a center 3 days a week and have the surgeries to connect an artery and a vein, in an extremity and have all the difficulties that entails. Also any such access only lasts for a certain amount of time and there are only so many places on the body to make such an access.
ReplyDeleteWe had a doctor in the last center where I worked who was by all accounts a good doctor (so many of them are not) but he didn't believe in the abdominal form of dialysis and would not even discuss it with his patients. Thus they were deprived of an easier form of treatment and had shorter lives. Management does not cross the doctors as they decide what center their patients go to and where the money flows. This situation was ongoing when I retired.
ReplyDelete"That masks don't work, that keeping kids out of school is a bad idea, that some vaccines don't provide protection and may do more harm than good. "
Right from the git go many of us "knew" this and were villified and cancelled for saying so.
Not the least of whom were the likes of Ben Carson and the Surgeon General (who was silenced in March 2020 and not seen nor heard from until sometime later in summer).