Doctor You’d think that doctors would choose much the same treatment for themselves as for their patients, but according to research from Duke University, USA, that’s not the case in practice.
The researchers presented two groups of primary care physicians in the US, (the equivalent of a British GP) with one of two different scenarios. In one, they were asked to choose a treatment for themselves when they had been diagnosed with a particular condition; in the other, they were the doctor recommending treatment for a patient with the same condition.
The first scenario involved two surgical treatment options for colon cancer. Both would cure the cancer in 80% of cases, but while one option had a higher mortality rate it also had fewer adverse side effects. While nearly 40% of doctors chose the procedure with the greater risk of death for themselves, only 25% chose this option when they were supposedly recommending treatment for their patients.
Similar differences were seen when a different set of scenarios was suggested, this time with a new strain of avian flu that would cause death in around 10% of those infected. The treatment, which would reduce the risks of adverse effects by half, would cause death in 1% of cases, and permanent neurological paralysis in 4% of patients.
Sixty-two per cent of doctors would have opted to avoid the treatment had they been deciding for themselves; had they been recommending treatment to a patient, only 50% would have advised against it.
This article was published on April 14, 2011