MD Talk: Healthcare? How To Be Your Own best Medical Expert Paradoxifi

In this podcast episode, consumers learn how to be their own best medical expert for important decisions regarding their healthcare. With so much contradictory health information readily available via the internet, understanding how to be your own best medical expert can be challenging. Facts based in good science can be hard to identify.







In addition, facts take time and effort to establish. A new airborne contagious virus pandemic will not have adequate studies about specifics until time has passed and the event unfolds. But, researching information of airborne viral disease events of the past for comparison is possible. Also finding good science data on the use of protections, such as mask wearing to avoid disease spread, can be done.







The key to web research is to remember that anyone can put up a website and promote their version of science "facts."The idea that “good information based on accurate science” will rise to the top of your web search is not a given anymore. Knowledge is in an age of paradox. While vast amounts of information are more readily available than ever before, it takes close scrutiny to sort out fact from fiction.







How can healthcare consumers better discover accurate answers?















First, understand the difference between anecdotal information and scientific statistical analysis of group data.















What is anecdotal evidence?







An anecdote is a story. In medicine, it is what we share about a medical experience we have had or someone else has had. We share it and often believe it is "evidence" that proves a course of action is correct. As humans, we are predisposed to like anecdotes, because we can relate better to stories. Scientific evidence is hard to grasp.







What is scientific evidence?







Scientific evidence today lies most often within the scope of statistics. Statistics is also a science, and it deals with collecting, organizing, analyzing, and drawing conclusions from sampled data to the whole population.







A proper medical test study design will have an appropriate selection of study samples. Also there will be a double blind component which means information which may influence the participants of the experiment is withheld (masked or blinded) until after the experiment is complete. Good blinding can reduce or eliminate experimental biases that might come from a participants' expectations. Other bias possibilities that need to be eliminated in the study would be any effect on the participants caused by the observer's study of them, observer bias, confirmation bias, and other sources of bias. Peer review is also part of a good scientific study.







Decades ago, scientists didn’t conduct randomized controlled trials. They based their data and treatment on case series and anecdotal evidence. (Anyone ever hear of heroin being used as a cough suppressant for children in the early 1900s?)







Medical recommendations for treatments from physicians today are most often based in studies with statistical analysis of large groups of data. Do we really want to go backwards and use anecdotal evidence as the mainstream basis for treatment again?







Ask yourself this question when looking at medical information.







Is this source of healthcare information rooted in anecdotal evidence or based in evidence from a structured study that used the scientific method to determine results and eliminate bias?















A second major concern when examining healthcare and medical expertise is "conformation bias."







Bias can occur not just in the study itself but also in our...