Naivety – the road less travelled.
I was a little surprised in Ben Goldacre’s excellent Bad Science book that he tried not to admit to being a doctor as it could undermine his arguments if he was perceived as an authority figure.
My first reaction was that I am not sure it is as easy as that. But I now wonder if I have uncovered a large streak of naivety of which I was (pretty much by definition) blissfully unaware. In my interactions with patients I don’t really detect a huge amount of hostility to the profession. The vast majority of people are happy to speak to us.
I try to practice a patient-centred medicine where I present as much information as I can muster to my patients, in as palatable form as I can manage, and we agree on the way forward. I have never been in the position where I have felt compelled to hide my profession in order to further my argument. This is perhaps the exact position that Ben Goldacre has found himself in. Is it really so wrong to talk about bad science and to be a doctor?
Maybe I have been arrogant rather than naïve? What I do know about illness and health and medical evidence largely comes from my training and experience of being a doctor. It is not the only way to get that knowledge or to have experience of health care but it is the road I have travelled.
While looking at the Herpes Viruses Association recently, who do, of course, have doctor patrons, I found this paragraph:
There are currently twelve members of the Executive Management Committee. They are all members of our Association and none has a professional or commercial interest in herpes simplex (i.e. no doctors or pharmaceutical company representatives).
This is the naïve bit: what vested professional interest would most doctors have other than to help people with these issues? Why would an organisation feel they have to reassure their members of the absence of doctors? I feel a smidgen stung by this – but being unceremoniously dumped into the same sentence as drugs reps – now that really hurts.
That is interesting. The idea that doctors are one of the groups you need to exclude to avoid corruption….hmm.