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A doctor should be quite curious about a something that might alleviate a common and serious ailment. Other things to do might be having a look in recent litera

A doctor should be quite curious about a something that might alleviate a common and serious ailment. Other things to do might be having a look in recent literature if 'nicotine' and 'schizophrenia' show up in the same paper, ping a colleague in research, or alternatively, explain the error of OP's reasoning in simple terms. More fundamentally, an educated person should be able to have two different ideas in their head at the same time without having to suppress or reject one or the other: a) nicotine is unhealthy b) nicotine can be a cure

beambot 10y ago
So... bear with me: Patient comes in and says "I noticed that nicotine helps with my symptoms." Doctor does some searches & reading and sees no results (because this study hadn't been published yet). Doctor tells patient, "There is no published, scientific evidence between nicotine use and treatment of schizophrenia. But there is evidence that smoking is bad." That seems perfectly reasonable for a practicing doctor before this study was published. How can you be mad at that?! Do you thoroughly research every correlation you encounter in your field of expertise when you have other clients & projects to address? (It seems reasonable to me.)
- anigbrowl 10y ago
  A reasonable reaction would be 'tell me about the difference it makes to your symptomology' and maybe helping the patient figure out a way to track this systematically. Likewise I would have thought that mentioning my extensive experience of psychedelic drugs (also now suddenly fashionable) would have merited something other than 'uhuh', such as questions about how the temporary improvement in mood manifested or how long it lasted. I manage to have very interesting conversations on subjects I know nothing about by the simple method of asking people questions about the domain knowledge they've acquired, and I doubt that any psychiatrist has ever lost their license for listening too closely to their patients.
  - beambot 10y ago
    That reaction makes a lot of sense. Indeed, that would be the most effective method!

beambot 10y ago

So... bear with me: Patient comes in and says "I noticed that nicotine helps with my symptoms." Doctor does some searches & reading and sees no results (because this study hadn't been published yet). Doctor tells patient, "There is no published, scientific evidence between nicotine use and treatment of schizophrenia. But there is evidence that smoking is bad." That seems perfectly reasonable for a practicing doctor before this study was published. How can you be mad at that?! Do you thoroughly research every correlation you encounter in your field of expertise when you have other clients & projects to address? (It seems reasonable to me.)

anigbrowl 10y ago
A reasonable reaction would be 'tell me about the difference it makes to your symptomology' and maybe helping the patient figure out a way to track this systematically. Likewise I would have thought that mentioning my extensive experience of psychedelic drugs (also now suddenly fashionable) would have merited something other than 'uhuh', such as questions about how the temporary improvement in mood manifested or how long it lasted. I manage to have very interesting conversations on subjects I know nothing about by the simple method of asking people questions about the domain knowledge they've acquired, and I doubt that any psychiatrist has ever lost their license for listening too closely to their patients.
- beambot 10y ago
  That reaction makes a lot of sense. Indeed, that would be the most effective method!