Making healthcare better


	Making healthcare better

Lexica

11-8-2009 1:01 AM

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tags:

health, healthcare, medicine, research, evidence-based-medicine

Lexica says:

Interesting look at the need to move to a more evidence-based approach.

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<div style="margin: 12px 0px; font-family: arial; color: #333333; background: #ffffff; border: solid 4px #e5e5e5; width: 100%; clear: left;"><div class="CM_CTB_Content_Wrap" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;background-color: #ffffff;"><div style="border-bottom: solid 1px #dcdcdc; white-space: nowrap; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: #eeeeee ;background-image: url(http://clipmarks.com/images/source-bg.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; height: 24px; line-height: 24px; vertical-align: middle; padding-bottom: 4px; color: #666666; font-size: 10px;" ><a href="http://clipmarks.com/clip-to-blog/" title="see clips that are hot right now"><img src="http://content.clipmarks.com/blog_embed/eb581c9d-a47f-429e-ae36-17d77f8c31cc/E0472671-F90F-454E-AA59-0DF6F1E0ABD5/" alt="" width="19" height="19" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle; margin: 0px 4px; display: inline; border: none; float:none;" /></a>clipped from <a title="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/08/magazine/08Healthcare-t.html?em=&pagewanted=all#" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/08/magazine/08Healthcare-t.html?em=&pagewanted=all#" style="font-size: 11px;">www.nytimes.com</a></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/08/magazine/08Healthcare-t.html?em=&pagewanted=all#">For most of human history</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/08/magazine/08Healthcare-t.html?em=&pagewanted=all#">doctors have done more harm than good</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/08/magazine/08Healthcare-t.html?em=&pagewanted=all#">Yet patients continued to go to doctors, and many continued to put great in faith in medicine.</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/08/magazine/08Healthcare-t.html?em=&pagewanted=all#">There was a strong intuitive logic behind those old treatments</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/08/magazine/08Healthcare-t.html?em=&pagewanted=all#">They made a lot more sense on their face than the abstract theories about germs and viruses</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/08/magazine/08Healthcare-t.html?em=&pagewanted=all#">In the end, of course, the theories about germs and viruses won out. They had the advantage of being correct, and doctors — haltingly and skeptically, but eventually — embraced them.</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/08/magazine/08Healthcare-t.html?em=&pagewanted=all#">But there is one important way in which medicine never quite adopted the scientific method.</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/08/magazine/08Healthcare-t.html?em=&pagewanted=all#">once a treatment enters the mainstream — once we know <SPAN class="italic">whether</SPAN> it works in certain situations — science is largely left behind. The next questions — <SPAN class="italic">when</SPAN> to use it and on <SPAN class="italic">which</SPAN> patients — become matters of judgment, not measurement. The decision is, once again, left to a doctor’s informed intuition.</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/08/magazine/08Healthcare-t.html?em=&pagewanted=all#">As a result, different doctors frequently end up coming up with different answers to the same question.</blockquote></div><div style="margin: 0px 6px 6px 4px;"><table style="font-size: 11px;border-spacing: 0px;padding: 0px;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr><td style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;">&nbsp;</td><td align="right" style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;width:107px" width="107"><a href="http://clipmarks.com/share/E0472671-F90F-454E-AA59-0DF6F1E0ABD5/blog/" title="blog or email this clip"><img src="http://content7.clipmarks.com/images/c2b-foot.png" border="0" alt="blog it" width="107" height="17" style="border-width:0px;padding:0px;margin:0px;" /></a></td></tr></table></div></div>

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