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Healthy Skepticism Library item: 20359

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

 

Publication type: Journal Article

Cohen SJ, Weinberger M, Mazzuca SA, McDonald CJ.
Perceived influence of different information sources on the decision-making of internal medicine house staff and faculty.
Soc Sci Med 1982; 16:(14):1361-4
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6981849


Abstract:

To determine the extent to which different sources of information are perceived to influence common medical decisions, 10 interns, 22 senior residents and 9 faculty general internists rated the degree of influence of house staff, general internists, subspecialists, conferences, journal reading and past experience on their decisions concerning primary prevention (vaccination), secondary prevention (screening) and drug therapy. Analysis of variance of their questionnaire data supports the following conclusions: physicians at different stages of training rely on different sources of information; as physicians advance in training the influence of generalists wanes while that of subspecialists increases; subspecialists and past experience are perceived as primarily affecting therapeutic decisions; primary prevention appears least subject to influence by prevailing information sources; and the preference for reading begins early and increases as physicians advance in training. These data suggest that designing effective medical education requires considering the level of the physician’s training and the nature of the medical decision.

Keywords:
Academic Medical Centers Cross-Sectional Studies Decision Making* Faculty, Medical* Humans Indiana Learning Medical Staff, Hospital* Questionnaires

 

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Cases of wilful misrepresentation are a rarity in medical advertising. For every advertisement in which nonexistent doctors are called on to testify or deliberately irrelevant references are bunched up in [fine print], you will find a hundred or more whose greatest offenses are unquestioning enthusiasm and the skill to communicate it.

The best defence the physician can muster against this kind of advertising is a healthy skepticism and a willingness, not always apparent in the past, to do his homework. He must cultivate a flair for spotting the logical loophole, the invalid clinical trial, the unreliable or meaningless testimonial, the unneeded improvement and the unlikely claim. Above all, he must develop greater resistance to the lure of the fashionable and the new.
- Pierre R. Garai (advertising executive) 1963