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How a clinician approahes the medical literature

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  • How a clinician approahes the medical literature

    http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=10300

    This attitude, trusting authority, held by many in medicine, goes against the University of Google approach where a day of searching and a quick misreading of the abstracts renders everyone an expert. I wonder if other fields are plagued with these quick pseudo-experts. Law is, when the accused attempt to defend themselves.
    You don't say!

    I probably read as much of the ID literature as any specialist. Preparing for my Puscast podcast, I skim several hundred titles every two weeks, usually select around 80 references of interest and read most of them with varying degrees of depth. Yet I am still sipping at a fire hose of information
    When it comes to treatment? That is where I tell the residents that the three most dangerous words in medicine are ‘In. My. Experience.’ You cannot trust experience when deciding on therapy, especially for relatively unusual diseases. Sometimes I will ask a doc why they use a given antibiotic, usually in a situation where it is being used in a way that is, shall we say, old fashioned. Often the response is “I like it”‘ as if the choice of a drug is like choosing a beer.
    Experience comes with time, and I have read that it takes 10 years to become competent in a field. Whether true or not, it matches my experience.
    Again, you don't say!
    Sharon, mother of identical twin girls with scoliosis

    No island of sanity.

    Question: What do you call alternative medicine that works?
    Answer: Medicine


    "We are all African."
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