I'm sure there are many physicians who don't fully understand the statistics behind the studies; but they at least have the knowledge to interpret the statistical results presented by those who do.
Certainly their medical background is necessary to fully understand most studies. I don't have it so I have to rely on analysis by those who do, most of whom are doctors.
But medical knowledge is only one part of determining the validity of study results. You also have to understand the process of designing studies, particularly isolating variables and the notion of correlation vs causation. You have to understand the concept of statistical significance. And you have to recognize the what type of study you're looking at--whether it's progressive, double blind, longitudinal, epidemiological, etc, etc. And you have to be a skeptic, alert to the possibility of bias or error. Those things I know how to do. I disagree with you that doctors generally have the ability to do that. The population at large doesn't and I'd be willing to bet they don't teach it in med school. While doctors may have the medical background I lack, I know enough about elements of studies in general to recognize when they are conspicuously missing and the doctor or reporter doesn't know what he's talking about.
The bottom line is that I can't ever know with any certainty that a study is valid because I don't have the medical knowledge to bring to bear but I can very often tell when it is invalid due to some fatal flaw either in the study itself or their interpretation of it. I don't know enough to give an unqualified thumbs up to any of it but I can easily give a thumbs down when I see that the claims are all wet.
A simple example that comes to mind because I recently complained about it elsewhere on SI is the recent analysis of which elements of the Mediterranean diet most contribute to its outcome. News reports from that analysis and comments from doctors I've seen attribute certain results to eating red meat. The problem is that the study didn't address red meat discretely but lumped it together with processed meats. Now, a steak is different in many ways from a hot dog. Since the authors did not isolate them, we have no way of know whether the particular result was a function of the red meat or the processing. The claims may apply to red meat, processed meat, or both. Anyone who adamantly applies them to red meat is either ignorant or lying.
Foundational knowledge in medicine may be good enough for you to take your chances but it isn't for me. I've seen too many elementary mistakes in the non-medical aspects. Just because an expert knows his subject area doesn't mean he is expert in any other arena. |
