Some doctors keep abreast of the latest medical research. Others keep practicing the medicine they learned thirty years ago. We should all prefer the first kind, right? An interesting post by Russ Roberts on the accuracy of medical research has made me think again.
Jul 27 2005
In the second essay in a series, I write, Think of the economy as a restaurant, or, better yet, as a Food Court. Behind the Food Court there is a farm, where plants and animals grow spontaneously in adequate but limited supplies... When the Food Court economy was relatively undeveloped, there were only a few recipes...
Jul 26 2005
Sunday I declared war on a pair of yellow jacket nests at the base of my house, and it got me thinking. According to conventional wisdom, when I use an anti-yellow jacket spray, I impose a negative externality on other people, because I make the yellow jacket population more resistant to the spray. In Darwinian terms...
Jul 25 2005
Some doctors keep abreast of the latest medical research. Others keep practicing the medicine they learned thirty years ago. We should all prefer the first kind, right? An interesting post by Russ Roberts on the accuracy of medical research has made me think again.
READER COMMENTS
Bruce Cleaver
Jul 25 2005 at 7:32pm
From the Cafe Hayek article:
“Study Finds One-third of Medical Studies are Wrong”
Perhaps the study itself has a 1/3 chance at being wrong….
Daniel Lurker
Jul 26 2005 at 2:39am
Wouldn’t this imply that you should find a well informed Bayesian physician? The additional information from new studies can’t be totally useless (even with such a high error rate), especially if the literature is well-developed, as seems to be the case with most conditions. Even studies of specific treatments seem to be replicated several times.
Dewey Munson
Jul 26 2005 at 7:40am
1, Find a doctor who will confirm that you are sick. (80% of “sick” are imaginary)
2. Go to a hospital with a broad medical staff who talk to each other and therefore have access to maximum knowledge in the least time. and facilities for confirmation.
Michael H.
Jul 26 2005 at 9:10am
Why would you think the studies of 30 years ago were any better than those of today?
Mr. Econotarian
Jul 26 2005 at 12:47pm
The doctor to see is the one who directs your medical treatment based on your results, not just study results. The differences between individual response to many drug treatments are significant.
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