Doctors Think You’re Stupid, Enjoy Tricking You
In perhaps the greatest medical betrayal since Katherine Heigl dissed the writers of Grey’s Anatomy, a new report shows that most doctors think their patients are stupid and enjoy tricking them.
Additionally, a majority of them think it’s perfectly ethical to trick them, even though we’re not sure exactly where that line is in the Hippopotamus Oath.
From ABC News:
According to a new study published in the British Medical Journal, U.S. doctors regularly give placebo treatments such as vitamins, sedatives or even antibiotics to patients, even though in many cases these doctors don’t expect such treatments to help the patient’s underlying disease.
In a survey of 679 general internal medicine physicians and rheumatologists, researchers from the National Institutes of Health found that about half of the doctors admitted to prescribing placebo treatments without informing the patient.
Moreover, most of the doctors, 62 percent, believed that the practice of giving a patient a placebo without their knowledge is ethically sound.
Needless to say, we immediately consulted Sic Willie’s physician Dr. Kenzie Kenner regarding this report, who merely purred and reminded us that “we liked it” when she was a bad girl.
Sad, but true.
Comments
By -- on October 24th, 2008 at 4:39 pm
Believe me — better to get a placebo than what’s in some of those little “medications!”
By BIN News on October 24th, 2008 at 7:33 pm
Wackos abound! Particularly at sic(k) willie’s blog. Most of sic(k) willie’s wackos are reflections. You know. Paid for by the same carpetbuggers.
will, serious question: If given a “placebo,” where would you put it?
By -- on October 25th, 2008 at 1:09 pm
BIN,
My guess would be somewhere very painful to you.
By valery md on June 4th, 2009 at 3:37 pm
“prescribing placebo treatments without informing the patient.”
ahahah you guys… you make me laugh. :)
get informed on what a “placebo treatment” is, and then you will understand WHY patients are NOT informed when taking it. should you know that you have been prescripted a placebo, the “placebo effect” (really existing good effects after taking nothing more than a sugar pill, due to the positive reaction of the patient to the idea of the treatment) will immediately disappear.
moreover, many trials of new medicines are based on a “double blind” test, meaning real pill versus placebo: differences in results. this is how many new therapies are verified, discovered and found really working.
we’re not triking you. you are just too suspicious :)
vale, MD from Italy (sorry for the mistakes :))