Why medical research sucks

Please note this is a multi part post, meant to be read in order and for space considerations, done in multiple parts.

"Excuse me one second,” replied the young resident to his much older and significantly wizened mentor.

Dr Jack I will call him was in his early 70's and even though he was slowing down he was still a great teacher.

His nose had grown long and his ears large and he had the white hair and gnarled look that comes when you cross Santa Claus with Albert Einstein.

I could see him barely but perceptibly shake his head when the young doctor who was supposed to answer the question pulled out his palm pilot and looked up the latest research.

"It says here on the latest meta analysis of studies that"...Dr. Jack cut him off.

"What are you going to do in the Emergency room at 3 a.m. when the batteries die on that thing?"

The student replied after a long pause, "I guess I could get my extra battery pack from up in the on-call room."

That was not the answer Dr Jack had wanted.

"No, no, no!" he said.

"You've don't know who sponsored all those studies. You don't know how they can pick only certain types of patients to give them the best looking data. You don't know how they can bury data that doesn't suit them or is even dangerous.

Son, you've got to learn to think for yourself and don't just rely on the drug companies.

As a matter of fact if you kill someone with one of their drugs, do you think they'll be there in the courtroom to bail you out!?"

With that Jack had reached the end of his leash. He patiently told the kid what to do, made sure it got done and then left to get some much needed rest.

"I really need to retire" he said.

I shook my head in understanding and offered him some Instant Endurance, knowing that his night was anything but finished.

"Thanks," he said smiling, "I don't know what's in them but I know that unlike the drugs we use, it can't do any damage and I heard from another guy they really work well."

"They do, Jack, thousands of people swear by them, and you know what they always say is our first job" I replied.

We both simultaneously said laughing, "First, do no harm".

Sadly as Jack went off into the twilight of his career we both knew that was not the first priority of the drug companies.

The good news is that he still takes his Instant Endurance and Fish Oil and is enjoying his hard won retirement.

We've run out of space for now but:

Join me again in a little bit when we dig deeper in to "Why Medical Research Sucks part 2"

And this is war!

Doc