3 ms·

Doctors are not here to do research. It's not their job. Yes, this means usual care always lags behind research by years or at least the time to formulate guide

by rscho 5y ago

Doctors are not here to do research. It's not their job. Yes, this means usual care always lags behind research by years or at least the time to formulate guidelines. No, you'll accomplish nothing trying to force the hand of clinicians in doing stuff they're not educated to do or understand. Have a weird condition? Sorry, but most of the time you'll be out of luck. And there isn't really anything planned in our healthcare systems to help you. And frankly, people coming into my practice wielding science papers often understand neither what they read, nor that they are asking for an impossible thing. The best I could do if your claim seems realistic is to refer you to a specialist in the matter, but never ever would I act solely on the basis of research papers. And that's because I am a researcher myself, so I know how unreliable that is.

sterlind 5y ago
wait, if you're a researcher, and a doctor, but you say doctors are not here to do research.. isn't that a contradiction? I think you're right that most doctors don't do research, but doctors publish papers all the time. if I look at a surgery journal I'll see articles by surgeons. my doctor isn't like, in the lab running tissue assays, but he'll try experimental things when no clear-cut treatment exists, see if they succeed or fail, and adjust his practice accordingly. also, dismissing people with "weird conditions" as "out of luck" is a pretty crappy thing to do. I can understand not having enough time or background to handle those cases, but I sure hope you're referring those people to someone who can rather than giving up on your patients because you can't be bothered.
- rscho 5y ago
  One can have 2 jobs. I'm not saying that no docs do research, but I'm insisting that caring for people and doing research are two different jobs that have nothing in common. The fact that the two are so poorly separated in practice is damaging to both science and patients. What people don't understand is that modern medicine is not centered around the practitioners but around precise guidelines that are both medically and legally binding. When I say that you're out of luck, it's not to spite anyone. If a competent clinician specialist examined a case and sees no way out, going to the big fish professor will not benefit you otherwise than maybe entering a study, because from a reasonable clinical pov there are really many conditions for which we can only offer support. So sometimes, no one "can". But clinicians are not expected to use creative thinking, and that's the very best medical evolution since the past century. It's the job of researchers to read science papers and formulate the guidelines to be transmitted to clinicians. You REALLY should not be doing that all by yourself as a practitioner.

by rscho 5y ago

sterlind 5y ago

wait, if you're a researcher, and a doctor, but you say doctors are not here to do research.. isn't that a contradiction? I think you're right that most doctors don't do research, but doctors publish papers all the time. if I look at a surgery journal I'll see articles by surgeons. my doctor isn't like, in the lab running tissue assays, but he'll try experimental things when no clear-cut treatment exists, see if they succeed or fail, and adjust his practice accordingly. also, dismissing people with "weird conditions" as "out of luck" is a pretty crappy thing to do. I can understand not having enough time or background to handle those cases, but I sure hope you're referring those people to someone who can rather than giving up on your patients because you can't be bothered.

rscho 5y ago
One can have 2 jobs. I'm not saying that no docs do research, but I'm insisting that caring for people and doing research are two different jobs that have nothing in common. The fact that the two are so poorly separated in practice is damaging to both science and patients. What people don't understand is that modern medicine is not centered around the practitioners but around precise guidelines that are both medically and legally binding. When I say that you're out of luck, it's not to spite anyone. If a competent clinician specialist examined a case and sees no way out, going to the big fish professor will not benefit you otherwise than maybe entering a study, because from a reasonable clinical pov there are really many conditions for which we can only offer support. So sometimes, no one "can". But clinicians are not expected to use creative thinking, and that's the very best medical evolution since the past century. It's the job of researchers to read science papers and formulate the guidelines to be transmitted to clinicians. You REALLY should not be doing that all by yourself as a practitioner.