What doctors won't do

There was an interesting article in UK Guardian Newspaper on Saturday http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2013/jan/19/what-doctors-wont-do?INTCMP=SRCH
It's not a scientific article, but a collection of comments form British healthcare professionals about what medical treatments they would avoid or not do. It's quite a revealing and should make us reflect on why patients are reluctant and don't "adhere" in the way that are supposed too. Interestingly, and appropriately, there are contradictions between the respondents. Our healthcare professionals as patients is a subject that we need to know more about.

Is experience important?

On the subject of prescriptions, the answer might be NO? BMJ OPEN has an interesting paper on prescription errors in UK hospitals [http://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/3/1/e002036.full.pdf+html]. Of 4238 prescriptions evaluated, one or more error was observed in 1857 (43.8%) prescriptions. Of these, 1264 (41.9%) were minor, 1629 (54.1%) were significant, 109 (3.6%) were serious and 9 (0.30%) were potentially life threatening. It shouldn’t be terribly surprising that such errors can happen, but what was surprising was the fact that grade was not a significant predictor of errors being made. The paper contains lots of information about the factors influencing errors (e.g., number of medications), but the question as to why prescriber experience does not seem to be important is not fully explored. It sounds like this could be a great PhD these for a cognitive psychologist.