NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #31/NN_1992_31.iso/spool/sci/med/23285

Internet Message Format | 1992-12-31 | 3.4 KB

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From: [e-mail] (Gordon Banks)
Newsgroups: sci.med
Subject: Re: Non-physician bashing
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 31 Dec 92 18:21:09 GMT
Article-I.D.: pitt.17941
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
Sender: [e-mail]
Reply-To: [e-mail] (Gordon Banks)
Organization: Univ. of Pittsburgh Computer Science
Lines: 56

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Scott Ballantyne) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Russell Turpin) writes:
>
>   Those who embrace quack theories [...] are merely less
>   than well educated or lacking in the skills for critical thought
>   in the area concerned.
>
>There was an interesting paper in the Annals of Internal Medicine,
>July 1984 which studied patients and practitioners who indulged in
>'alternative' (i.e. quack) theories of cancer medicine. Of many
>interesting observations, particularly interesting was that most
>patients were well educated (no arguments about what really
>constitutes education, puleeze) and that 50% of the practioners were
>M.D.s

There is a good PhD dissertation waiting for some medical sociologist
on this topic.  I have some interesting observations, but a systematic
study would be useful.  The most uneducated will go to quacks as
well as scientific practioners.  They don't know enough to evaluate
one over another and are only interested in getting well.  They
will try anything.  Those on welfare, of course, are limited to
what the government will pay for, which excludes expensive quacks.
Most of my patients in this group will have tried chiropractors,
which is the only quack system that is widespread enough in these
parts that the common person knows about them.

The educated who visit quacks fall into many different types.
THere are those with terminal diseases who are unable to accept
the fact that they are dying or incurable and will rush hither
and yon from quack to quack until their money runs out or
they die.

There are the new agers who are usually not scientifically
educated, but educated in liberal arts or fine arts, etc.,
and are attracted by the "philosophy" of "holisitic" healers.
Their bookshelves are often crammed with quack books on candida,
herbalism, eastern religions, Chinese medicine, etc.  They
tend to visit practitioners that are authentically trained in
oriental traditional medicine, or real shamans, etc.  These people
are not exactly quacks, since they are more like religious practitioners,
but they certainly aren't scientific.

There are the conspiracy theorists who reject anything organized
or institutionalized as conspiratorial, and thus reject orthodox
medicine for those reasons.

As to MDs being the majority of quacks, that is certainly true.
There is far more money to be made by being a quack.  The educated
are more likely to visit an MD quack than a lowly chiropractor, too.
They overvalue the worth of the MD degree in assuring non-quackhood.

--
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Gordon Banks  N3JXP      | "I have given you an argument; I am not obliged
[e-mail]   |  to supply you with an understanding." -S.Johnson
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