Intellectual Suicide

Physician suicide is an enormous problem. We lose approximately 400 doctors and trainees annually to suicide. This is a tragedy, pure and simple. Not limited to the human carnage of the equivalent of an entire medical school class or more, but, to quote Dr. Pamela Wible, “Each year more than one million Americans lose their doctors to suicide.” What does it mean, then, when physicians who are trained in medicine — defined as the application of scientific principles to the diagnosis and treatment of human ills — turn away from reality to accept the magical thinking of pseudoscience? I submit that it is intellectual suicide. It may not seem to patients as if they’ve lost their doctors, but when physicians stop practicing medicine and embrace magic, those patients are no longer receiving medical care. There is such a thing as being too open-minded; your brain really can fall out. Currently known as “Functional medicine” or “Integrative medicine,” it was formerly referred to as “Complementary” or “Alternative”, sometimes “holistic” or “natural.” Quackery is still quackery, no matter how hard it tries to re-brand itself over the decades. It encompasses, amonth other things, Natuopathy, chiropractic, homeopathy, Reiki and other forms of “energy healing,” and acupuncture. (Yes, acupuncture. Check out the archives at Science Based Medicine. Although widely considered ...
Source: Musings of a Dinosaur - Category: Primary Care Authors: Tags: Medical Source Type: blogs