Comments on: Defensive medicine wastes money and hurts patients

By: BloggerPal

BloggerPal — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 01:35:00 +0000

Surveys are not always reliable. Surveys do not correspond to the real sentiments of the people. If you think that defensive medicine wastes money then let the people make such decision.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 23:00:00 +0000

How can you take a survey on something without first defining what exactly it is? And if you do, how can you put any weight in a survey?

Doctors are scientists, right? Is all their diagnostic thinking this loose?

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 03:20:00 +0000

Kevin, You consider surveys, SURVEYS!*&^!%, convincing evidence. Surveys are the detritus of social science.

Serious quantitative empirical analyses have found little or no evidence of defensive medicine.

For a few recent studies, see http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/117994350/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0 (showing that fear on lawsuits lowers mortality rate) and http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/587430?journalCode=jls (finding no effect of increase likelihood of being sued on likelihood to perform caesarians).

The REAL PROBLEM is that you cannot distinguish the behavior of a cautious physician (who MAKES money on testing and/or follow-up appointments and who faces no personal cost in prescribing additional tests) from a physician who prescribes tests out of fear of litigation.

Kevin, you must stop the self-serving lies.