Paul Levy, formerly the CEO of a large hospital writes in today’s The Health Care Blog’ about conspiracy theories Here are some excerpts for clarity on my comments which are also posted at the original blog post.
He mentions excerpts from a writing of George Bernard Shaw, and I am not entirely certain which part of his post is the quote or if the entire article is from Shaw’s “The Doctor’s Dilemma, Preface on Doctors”
Quotes, to follow
“The truth is, there would never be any public agreement among doctors if they did not agree to agree on the main point of the doctor being always in the right
But for this very reason no doctor dare accuse another of malpractice
That any sane nation, having observed that you could provide for the supply of bread by giving bakers a pecuniary interest in baking for you, should go on to give a surgeon a pecuniary interest in cutting off your leg, is enough to make one despair of political humanity. But that is precisely what we have done. And the more appalling the mutilation, the more the mutilator is paid. He who corrects the ingrowing toe-nail receives a few shillings: he who cuts your inside out receives hundreds of guineas, except when he does it to a poor person for practice.
But the effect of this state of things is to make the medical profession a conspiracy to hide its own shortcomings.
Public ignorance of the laws of evidence and of statistics can hardly be exaggerated.
If I attribute these comments to the wrong person, I apologize.
It seems to me GBS was wrong about many things.
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