Posted by seldomseen on March 30, 2008, at 12:19:44
In reply to Re: Inductive versus Deductive Reasoning, posted by dbc on March 30, 2008, at 10:54:29
"As you pointed out even in a clinical environment psychiatrists run on ancedotal evidence and dont sit there and tell you the facts about control studies. Most of medicine is like this, if every doctor told their patients 1 in 1000 people that take penicilian goes into anaphylactic shock no one would take it"
It has been my experience that most of medicine, including psychiatry is not like that at all.
Most doctors follow the guidelines for practice set forth by working groups of physicians in that field. The groups decide on the quality of evidence for a specific treatment and issue standards for physicians to follow.
The guidelines for practice for the APA are found in this link:
http://www.psych.org/MainMenu/PsychiatricPractice/PracticeGuidelines_1.aspxNow that is not to say that physicians do not deviate from these guidelines, there are specific reasons to do exactly that. Also, these guidelines are updated as the need arises.
These guidelines clearly do not preclude the provider from using his or her best judgement (which may or may not be based on good evidence) regarding an individual patient. They do, however, outline the treatment modalities that are most likely to be of benefit.
Regarding your penicillin example, in my opinion, it would be wholly improper for a physician to tell a patient that there is a 1 in 1000 risk of anaphylactic shock without also informing the patient of the risk of death from overwhelming infection.
With most meds it is about risk/benefit analysis which is figured into the guidelines.
Just my two cents.
Seldom
poster:seldomseen
thread:820639
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20080330/msgs/820672.html