Jump to comment:
- Page navigation anchor for Bad Medicine: Overconfidence and customer service?Bad Medicine: Overconfidence and customer service?This article questions why reassurance can be considered bad medicine nowadays.1 I think the real question should be whether overconfidence and customer service are bad medicine.Twice the pride, double the fall. I have seen clinicians digging themselves into a hole by confidently making big claims. "Irbesartan is an ACE inhibitor." "Gram negative bacteria are all anaerobic." "Salbutamol nebs do not come in as 2.5 mg. I know for sure." These are just some of the wild reassurance I have heard in school and at work.In contrast, good clinicians often have a back-up plan, in case their initial assessments are wrong. That is why physicians spend years of training to learn the art of differential diagnosis. Even for medical specialists, they must first go through years of medical schools to learn various medical conditions. We are not simply looking for evidence to prove ourselves right; rather, we are often playing the devil's advocate to see which of our differentials is the least incorrect. Does it mean increased cost and time for ordering additional investigations? It is not necessarily true, as good clinicians often have a stepwise approach on what investigations to order, and use "time to test" whether their hypotheses are correct.Regardless, today clinicians are being judged by their "customer service" skills. Pa...Show MoreCompeting Interests: I have been paid for working as a medical doctor, but not writing this letter.